“What kind of meetin’ did you have?” asked Mrs. Sand.  “There—­there now; he shall have his bottle, so he shall!”

“A beautiful meeting.  Abraham Lincoln White, the Savannah negro, you know, came as a believer for the first time, and so did Miss Rozario from Whiteway and Laidlaw’s.  We had such a happy time.”

“What sort of collection?”

Laura opened a knotted handkerchief and counted out some copper coins.

“Only seven annas three pice!  And you call that a good meeting!  I don’t believe you exhorted them to give!”

“Oh, I think I did!” Laura returned mechanically.

“Seven annas and three pice!  And you know what the Commissioner wrote out about our last quarter’s earnings!  What did you say?”

“I said—­I said the collection would now be taken up,” Laura faltered.

“Oh dear! oh dear!  Leopold, stop clawing me!  Couldn’t you think of anythin’ more tellin’ or more touchin’ than that?  Fever or no fever, it does not do for me to stay away from the regular meetin’s.  One thing is plain—­he wasn’t there!”

“Who?”

“Well, you’ve never told me his name, but I expect you’ve got your reasons.”  Mrs. Sand’s tone was not arch, but slightly resentful.  “I mean the gentleman that attends so regular and sits behind, under the window.  A society man, I should say, to look at him, though the officers of this Army are no respecters of persons, and I don’t suppose the Lord takes any notice of his clothes.”

“His name is Mr. Lindsay.  No, he wasn’t there.”

The girl’s tone was distant and cold.  The rebuke about the collection had gone home to a place raw with similar reproaches.

“I hope you haven’t been discouraging him?”

Captain Filbert looked at her superior officer with astonishment.

“I have entreated him to come to the meetings.  But he never attends a Believers’ Rally.  Why should he?”

“What’s his state of mind?  He came to see you, didn’t he, the other night?”

“Yes, he did.  I don’t think he’s altogether careless.”

“Ain’t he seeking?”

“He wouldn’t admit it, but he may not know himself.  The Lord has different ways of working.  What else should bring him night after night?”

Mrs. Sand glanced meaningly at a point on the floor, with lifted eyebrows, then at her officer, and finally hid a badly disciplined smile behind her baby’s head.  When she looked back again Laura had flushed all over, and an embarrassment stood between them, which she felt was absurd.

“My!” she said—­scruples in breaking it could hardly perhaps have been expected of her—­“you do look nice when you’ve got a little colour.  But if you can’t see that it’s you that brings him to the meetin’s you must be blind, that’s all.”

Captain Filbert’s confusion was dispelled, as by the wave of a wand.

“Then I hope I may go on bringing him,” she said.  “He couldn’t come to a better place.”