"You must promise not to think of me," he said. "I did not come here to be considered. Do you think an old soldier, who has slept under the open sky many a night, cannot provide for himself?"
"Have you slept so often?" she asked, the very triviality of the question giving it a strange sweetness to his ears.
"Yes," he answered. "And often with no surety of wakening with my scalp on."
"Oh!" she exclaimed, and made an involuntary movement toward him.
He barely restrained his impulse to put out his hands, but hers fell at her sides the next instant.
"I am a great coward," she said. "It fills me with terror to hear of things like that. Is it at all likely that you will be ordered back?"
"I don't know," he replied, his uplifted eyes devouring all the sweetness of her face. "Would that"—
The very madness of the question forming itself on his lips was his own check.
"I don't want to think of it," he said. Then he added, "As I stand here I look up at you. I never looked up at you before."
"Nor I down at you," she returned. "You are always so high above me. It seems strange to look down at you."