"Oh, you might send a line to Colonel Martindale, dear. You know Mr. Foster goes home by the Sonoma--oh, hadn't you heard of it, Mr. Stuyvesant? Oh, dear, yes. He's been ready to go ever since the fighting began, but there was no boat." And then she too left Stuyvesant,--left him with the New York _Moon_ bottom topmost in his hand and a sensation as of wheels in his head. She proceeded, furthermore, to order tea on the back gallery and Maidie to the front. But tea was ready long before Maidie. Far out at the lines of San Pedro Macati Dyer's guns had sighted swarms of rebels up the Pasig, and with placid and methodical precision were sending shrapnel in that direction and dull, booming concussions in the other. An engagement of some kind was on at San Pedro, and Stuyvesant twitched with nervous longing to get there, despite the doctors, and sat wondering was another engagement off at Manila. Just what to do he had not decided. The _Moon_ and his senses were still upside-down when Sing came in with the transferred tea things and Mrs. Brent with the last thing Stuyvesant was thinking to see--Maid Marion, all smiles, congratulation, and cool organdie. Ten minutes' time in which to compose herself gives a girl far too great an advantage under such circumstances. "I--I'm glad to see you," said Stuyvesant helplessly. "I thought you were wearing yourself out at nursing." "Oh, it agrees with me," responded Maidie blithely. "I suppose it must. You certainly look so." "_Merci du compliment, Monsieur_," smiled Miss Ray, with sparkling eyes and the prettiest of courtesies. She certainly did look remarkably well. It was time for Stuyvesant to be seated again, but he hovered there about that tea-table, for Mrs. Brent made the totally unnecessary announcement that she would go in search of the spoons. "You had no time--I suppose--to look in on anybody but your assigned vict--patients, I mean," hazarded Stuyvesant, weakening his tentative by palpable display of sense of injury. "Well, you were usually asleep when I cal--inquired, I mean. One or two lumps, Mr. Stuyvesant?" And the dainty little white hand hovered over the sugar-bowl. "You usually chose such times, I fancy. One lump, thanks." There was another, not of sugar, in his throat and he knew it, and his fine blue eyes and thin, sad face were pathetic enough to move any woman's heart had not Miss Ray been so concerned about the tea. "You would have been able to return to duty days ago," said she, tendering the steaming cup and obviously ignoring his remark, "had you come right to hospital as Dr. Shiels directed, instead of scampering out to the front again. You thought more of the brevet, of course, than the gash. What a mercy it glanced on the rib! Only--such wounds are ever so much harder to stanch and dress." "You--knew about it, then?" he asked with reviving hope.