"I am wearied--yes," I admitted. "But that will pass away. My meeting again with you will be a memory of good cheer; and I found no little encouragement from a conversation just held with Lieutenant Caton."

She looked at me frankly, her eyes cleared of the mist. "Were you indeed thinking hopefully just now? You appeared so grave I feared it was despair."

"It was a mixture of both, Mrs. Brennan. My own known condition furnishes sufficient despair, while Caton's excessive happiness yields a goodly measure of joy, which I have not yet entirely lost. Nothing glorifies life, even in its darkest hour, as the success of love."

She glanced at my face shyly. "Undoubtedly the Lieutenant is in the seventh heaven at present," she admitted slowly. "His Celia has led him a merry chase these many months, before she made full surrender; but that merely makes final victory the sweeter."

"She retains the disposition of a child,"

"But the heart of a woman is back of all her playfulness. You are upon your way home?"