"I thank you," replied Mrs. Lawrence. "You have already done much for me and for Ronald."

Then Anita went out into the dusk, and in her soul was rebellion.

Youth was made for joy and she was robbed of her share. Anita was scarcely eighteen and deep-hearted.

In Mrs. Fortescue's room, Anita found Mrs. McGillicuddy, engaged in one of the comfortable chats that always took place between the Colonel's lady and the Sergeant's wife at the After-Clap's bed-time. As Sergeant McGillicuddy kept the Colonel informed of the happenings at the fort, so Mrs. McGillicuddy, who had great qualifications, and would have made a good scout, kept Mrs. Fortescue informed of all the news at the fort, from Major Harlow, the second in command, down to the smallest drummer boy in the regiment. Mrs. Fortescue being nothing if not feminine, she and Mrs. McGillicuddy were "sisters under their skins."

Anita's face was so grave that Mrs. Fortescue said to her tenderly--one is very tender with an only daughter:

"Is anything troubling you, dear?"

"Nothing at all," replied Anita, "I went to see Mrs. Lawrence, as the chaplain asked me, and finished a little jacket she was knitting for her boy. She doesn't seem very strong."

"And I dessay," said Mrs. McGillicuddy, who had held Anita in her arms when the girl was but a day old, "you saw all that cut gla.s.s and the rugs, as Mr. Broussard give to Lawrence. Them rugs! They're fit for a general's house. It seems to me it oughter be against the regulations for privates to have such rugs when sergeants' wives has to buy rugs off the bargain counter."

Mrs. McGillicuddy stood stiffly upon her rank as a sergeant's wife and believed in keeping the soldiers' wives where they belonged.

"I don't fancy Mr. Broussard is living in luxury himself just now,"

said Mrs. Fortescue. And Mrs. McGillicuddy's kind heart, being touched with remorse for having given Broussard a pin p.r.i.c.k, hastened to say:

"No, indeed, mum, for McGillicuddy heard Major Harlow readin' a letter from Mr. Broussard, and he says as how he lives on bananas and has got only two shirts, and his striker has to wash one of 'em out every day for Mr. Broussard to wear the next day. McGillicuddy says that Major Harlow says that Mr. Broussard says that he don't mind it a bit, and he's glad to see real service and proud to command the men that is with him, and they behaves splendid."

Anita fixed her eyes on Mrs. McGillicuddy's honest, rubicund face, and listened breathlessly as Mrs. McGillicuddy continued:

"And Mr. Broussard says the Philippines is one big h.e.l.l full of little h.e.l.ls, and n.o.body can get warm there in winter, or cool in summer, but there's lots of life to be seen there, and he's a-seein' it. And Blizzard is so far away, he can't sometimes believe there ever was such a place."

Suddenly, without the least warning, a quick warm gush of tears fell on Anita's cheeks. They were so far apart, the jungles and the icy peaks, the palm tree on the burning sands, and the pine tree in the frozen mountains! Anita walked quickly out of the room. Mrs. McGillicuddy, soft-hearted as she was hard-handed, looked at Mrs. Fortescue. The mother's eyes were moist; Anita was very unlike her, but Mrs. Fortescue remembered a period in her own young life when she, too, felt that the world was empty because of the absence of the Beloved. And suppose he had never come back? Mrs. Fortescue, remembering the br.i.m.m.i.n.g cup of happiness that had been hers merely because the man she loved came back, felt a little frightened for Anita. The girl was so precocious, so pa.s.sionate--and how difficult and baffling are those women whose loves are all pa.s.sion!

Anita baffled her mother still more, by appearing an hour later in a gay little gown, and taking the After-Clap from his crib and dancing with him until he absolutely refused to go to sleep. Then, Anita was in such high spirits at dinner that the Colonel told Mrs. Fortescue in their nightly talk while the Colonel smoked, he believed Anita had completely forgotten Broussard. At this, Mrs. Fortescue smiled and remained as silent as the Sphinx.

The winter was slipping by, and work and study and play went on in the snow-bound fort, and Colonel Fortescue was congratulating himself upon the wonderfully good report he could make of his command. There had not been a man missing in the whole month of February. But one day Lawrence, the gentleman-ranker, was reported missing.

The Colonel had no illusions concerning broken men and said so to Mrs.

Fortescue.

"The fellow has deserted--that's the way most of the broken men end.

He was in the aviation field yesterday and his going away was not premeditated, as he did not ask for leave. But something came in the way of temptation, and he couldn't stand it, and ran away."

The "something" was revealed by Sergeant McGillicuddy, with a pale face, while he was shut up with the Colonel in his office.

"It's partly my fault, sir," said the Sergeant. "The fellow has been doing his duty pretty well, and yesterday, on the aviation field, the aviation orficer was praisin' him for his work. You know, sir, how I likes the machines and studies 'em at odd times. The flyin' was over and there wasn't anybody around the sheds but Lawrence and me. I was lookup at his machine, and, no doubt, botherin' him, an he says sharp-like:

"'You can't understand these machines. It takes an educated man like me to understand 'em. They're more complicated than buggies.' That made me mad, sir, and I says, 'That's no way to speak to your Sergeant.' 'You go to the devil,' says Lawrence. 'You'll get ten days in the guard house for that,' I says. Then Lawrence seemed to grow crazy, all at once. 'Yes,' he shouts, like a lunatic, 'that's a fit punishment for a gentleman. You'll see to it, Sergeant, that I get ten days in the guard house, and my wife breakin' her heart with shame, and the other children tauntin' my boy!' With that, sir, he hit me on the side of the head with his fist. I was so unprepared that it knocked me down, but I saw Lawrence runnin' toward the station. I picked myself up and went and sat down on the bench outside the sheds to think what I ought to do. I knew, as well as I know now, that Lawrence was runnin'

away, and I had drove him to it. But I swear, sir, before my Colonel and my G.o.d, that I didn't mean to make Lawrence mad, or misuse him in any way. You know my record, sir."

"Yes," answered Colonel Fortescue, his pity divided among Lawrence and his wife, and the honest, well-meaning McGillicuddy, who had brought about a catastrophe.

"For G.o.d's sake, sir," said McGillicuddy, "wiping his forehead, be as easy on Lawrence as you can, and give me a day--two days--leave to hunt him up."

This the Colonel did, warning McGillicuddy not to repeat what had occurred on the aviation plain.

The Sergeant got his leave, and another two days, all spent in hunting for Lawrence. There was nowhere for him to go except to the little collection of houses at the railway station. No one had seen Lawrence board the train that pa.s.sed once a day, but a man, even in uniform, can sometimes slip aboard a train without being seen. The Sergeant came back, looking woe-begone, and Lawrence was published on the bulletin board as "absent without leave."

The shock of Lawrence's departure quite overcame his unhappy wife. She took to her bed and had not strength to leave it.

Sergeant McGillicuddy begged that he might be allowed to tell to the chaplain the provocation he had given Lawrence, who might tell Mrs.

Lawrence. The blow struck by Lawrence was the act of a mad impulse, and having struck an officer, Lawrence might well fear to face the punishment. This the Colonel permitted, and the chaplain, sitting by Mrs. Lawrence's bed, told her of it, and of Sergeant McGillicuddy's remorse. Until then, Mrs. Lawrence, lying in her bed, had remained strangely tearless, although a faint moan sometimes escaped her lips.

At the chaplain's words she suddenly burst into a rain of tears.

"My husband never meant to desert," she cried between her sobs. "He was doing his duty well--his own Sergeant said so. He must have been crazy when he struck the blow!"

"Poor McGillicuddy," said the chaplain quietly. "The Colonel has forbidden him to speak of it to any one, and he is breaking his heart over it."

No word of forgiveness came from Mrs. Lawrence's lips.

"It is the way with all of them, officers and men, they were all down on my husband because they thought he had done something wrong," said Mrs. Lawrence, with the divine, unreasoning love of a devoted woman.

"Mr. Broussard was not down on your husband," said the chaplain.

"True," replied Mrs. Lawrence, and then shut her lips close. If any one wished to know the secret bond between Broussard and Lawrence, one could never find it out from Mrs. Lawrence.

Sergeant McGillicuddy could keep from Mrs. McGillicuddy the details of what had occurred on the aviation field, but he could not conceal from her the fact that he was unhappy and conscience-stricken. All he would say to his wife was:

"I've done a man a wrong. I never meant it, as both G.o.d and the Colonel know." McGillicuddy had a way of bracketing the Deity with commanding officers, and did it with much simplicity and meant no irreverence.

"And I know it too, Patrick," replied Mrs. McGillicuddy, with the faith of a true wife in her husband.

"I'd tell you all about it, Araminta," said the poor Sergeant, "but the Colonel forbid me, and orders is orders."

"I know it," answered Mrs. McGillicuddy, "and I'll trust you, Patrick, I won't ever ask you the name because I can guess it easy. It's Lawrence."

The Sergeant groaned.

"If you can do anything for Mrs. Lawrence," he said, "or the boy----"

"I'll do it," valiantly replied Mrs. McGillicuddy, and straightway put her good words into effect.

Lawrence had then been missing five days. It was seven o'clock in the evening, and Mrs. McGillicuddy had already put the After-Clap to bed when she started for Mrs. Lawrence's quarters. There was no one to open the door, and Mrs. McGillicuddy walked unceremoniously into the little sitting-room, where the boy sat, silent and lonely and frightened, by the window. Mrs. McGillicuddy spoke a cheery word to him, and then pa.s.sed into the bedroom beyond. The light was dim but she could see Mrs. Lawrence lying, fully dressed, on the bed. At the sight of Mrs. McGillicuddy she turned her face away.

"Come now," said Mrs. McGillicuddy undauntedly, "I think I know why you don't want to see me. Well, Patrick McGillicuddy is as good a man as wears shoe-leather, but every Sergeant that ever lived has made some sort of a mistake in his life. So Patrick wants me to do all I can for you until something turns up, and I hope that something will be your husband--and my husband will be mighty easy on him at the court-martial."

Mrs. Lawrence made no reply. Then Mrs. McGillicuddy went into the little kitchen, and stirring up the fire soon had a comfortable meal ready, and calling to the little boy, gave him his first good supper in the five days that had pa.s.sed since his father came no more.

"You'd feel sorry for McGillicuddy if you could see him," Mrs.

McGillicuddy kept on, ignoring Mrs. Lawrence's cold silence. "And recollect, if you feel sorry for your husband, I feel sorry for mine.

'Taint right to keep the little feller here while you can't lift a hand to do for him, so I'm goin' to take him to my house, with my eight children, because there's luck in odd numbers, and I'll feed him up, pore little soul, and wash him and mend him, and start him to playin'

with Ignatius and Aloysius, for children ought to play, and Patrick 'll come every morning and start your fire, although he is a Sergeant, and we want to help you, and you must help us."

Mrs. Lawrence was not made of stone, and could not forever resist Mrs.