As he walked back to his barracks in the starlight his heart was filled
with a great peace. What a thing it was to have been able to speak to her
on paper and let her know his thoughts of her. It was as if after all
these years he had been able to pluck another trifling rose and lay it at
her lovely feet. Her knight! It was the fulfillment of all his boyish
dreams!
He had entrusted his letter to the Y.M.C.A. man to mail as he was going
out of camp that night and would mail it in Baltimore, ensuring it an
immediate start. Now he began to speculate whether it would reach its
destination by morning and be delivered with the morning mail. He felt as
excited and impatient as a child over it.
Suddenly a voice above him in a barracks window rang out with a familiar
guffaw, and the words:
"Why, man, I can't! Didn't I tell you I'm going to marry Ruth Macdonald
before I go! There wouldn't be time for that and the other, too!"
Something in his heart grew cold with pain and horror, and something in
his motive power stopped suddenly and halted his feet on the sidewalk in
the grade cut below the officers' barracks.
"Aw! A week more won't make any difference," drawled another familiar
voice, "I say, Hal, she's just crazy about you and you could get no end
of information out of her if you tried. All she asks is that you tell
what you know about a few little things that don't matter anyway."
"But I tell you I can't, man. If Ruth found out about the girl the
mischief would be to pay. She wouldn't stand for another girl--not that
kind of a girl, you know, and there wouldn't be time for me to explain
and smooth things over before I go across the Pond. I tell you I've made
up my mind about this."
The barracks door slammed shut on the voices and Corporal Cameron's heart
gave a great jump upwards in his breast and went on. Slowly, dizzily he
came to his senses and moved on automatically toward his own quarters.