"Beastly hole!" growled Jack. "I wish to Heaven they'd get us on and give us some work to do."
"Why don't they?"
"Ah--why don't they? Some one may know, but I'm beginning to doubt it. When we came up here we had hopes again, but now they say the Russians have had enough on the Danube and are bolting, so that's off. What's the news from home? I've hardly had a letter since we left."
Jim gave him of his latest, and handed him Lord Deseret's present, which Jack found greatly to his taste.
"No more news of Kattie?" he asked presently, when other subjects seemed exhausted, and in a tone that anticipated a negative reply.
"Yes. I found her--the very last night," said Jim quietly.
"You did? How was it?"
"I had been dining with Lord Deseret, and saying good-bye all round, and was dead tired. We were to start at six next morning and I was hurrying home to get some sleep, when suddenly Kattie stepped up and spoke to me."
"Good God! Did she know it was you?"
"Oh yes. She hadn't got so low as all that. But it gave me a shock, I can tell you, Jack, to meet her like that, though we had been doing all we could to find her."