"Yes, we've had war, pestilence, and almost famine out in the Philippines. It's been a jolly hard row to hoe, and I had to see so many poor fellows die, but it's done; they've let me come home to stay a while, you know?"
"We've heard a great deal more than that, and we've honored the hero; they've made you a captain, so I'm told." She was doing very well now; after all, he might know and take it casually!
He blushed like a girl. "I didn't expect it to come so soon; I believe the dear old colonel had something to do with it. I was glad chiefly because I thought it would please—you."
"It does please me so much."
They had turned and were walking together across the meadow; neither of them knew where they were going; the warm sunshine bathed them with its caresses, a flock of purple martins descended before them and whirled over the long grass in ever narrowing circles, their wings flashing in the sunlight.
"Tell me about yourself," he said; "it is a long time really, and we heard nothing out there, or next to nothing. I used to hope for a letter from you, and kept on hoping until I realized that I was too poor a correspondent to expect remembrance; but all the same I was starving for news."
She had the feeling of a condemned criminal who has a brief, unlooked-for reprieve with no hope of pardon later on.
"Haven't you heard anything? I thought Pamela wrote."
"When she feels like it. You know Pamela does things spasmodically,—and there's the baby; nearly everything gives way to his highness. The rest of us merely cumber the earth. Let me see, I think my last letter from Pamela was at New Year's."
Then of course he did not know! She must tell him, but her tongue refused to utter it.