"Of course," he nodded. And they retraced their steps together.
He left her at the door of the quaint, one-storied stone building where, she explained, she had a cot.
"You will come to see me again before you go back to your regiment, won't you?" she pleaded, keeping one hand in both of hers.
"Of course I will. Try to get some sleep, Letty. You're tremendously pretty when you've had plenty of sleep."
They both laughed; then she went indoors and he turned away across the road, under the windows of the ward where Ailsa was on duty, and so around to his store-room dwelling-place, where he sat down on the cot amid the piles of boxes and drew from his pocket the crumpled sheets of the letter that Ailsa had given him.
The handwriting seemed vaguely familiar to him; he glanced curiously down the page; his eyes became riveted; he reddened to the roots of his hair; then he deliberately began at the beginning, reading very carefully.
The letter had been written several weeks ago; it was dated, and signed with Hallam's name:
"MY DEAR MRS. PAIGE:
"Only my solemn sense of duty to all pure womanhood enables me to indite these lines to you; and, by so doing, to invite, nay, to encourage a cruel misunderstanding of my sincerest motives.
"But my letter is not dictated by malice or inspired by the natural chagrin which animates a man of spirit when he reflects upon the undeserved humiliation which he has endured from her who was once dearer to him than life itself. Mine is a nature susceptible and sensitive, yet, I natter myself, incapable of harbouring sentiments unworthy of a gentleman and a soldier.