“Ha, ha! Ho, ho!” laughed the doctor. “I like that. Why, between you and me, Gil, old man,” he whispered, “Brace is a sham. He could be well enough, at least nearly, if he liked.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“Go and tell him I say he’s to be promoted to major, and he’ll grow strong at once. No, he will not. Can’t you see what’s going on?” he added jocosely, as he took my arm, for of late the doctor and I had grown quite chums, and Brace had drifted away.
“No,” I said; “only that he keeps very low-spirited.”
“Not a bit of it, boy. You’re too young to understand these things. But poor Brace once lost his fair young wife.”
“Yes, I know that,” I said.
“Well, he is waiting till he is quite well again, and then he is going to ask a certain beautiful young lady, who is about as near an angel of mercy among wounded soldiers as a woman can be; and I ought to know.”
“Ask a certain beautiful young lady what?” I said.
“To shed light on his dark life, boy, and be his wife.”
“Why, you don’t mean to say that he loves our Grace?” I said.