"I feel fit for the fight before me." He drew himself up and began to nod here and there to people who greeted him.
In the house behind them at that moment Kitty was saying to her mother, "Where is he going, mother ?" "To Aspen Vale," was the reply.

"If you'd been at breakfast you'd have heard.

He'll be gone two days, perhaps three." Three days! She regretted now that she had not said to herself, "Courage, soldier," and gone to say good-bye to him when he called to her.

Perhaps she would not see him again till after the other woman--till after the wife-came.

Then--then the house would be empty; then the house would be so still.