“Broad-brim!  Do you fly blushing from my levete?  The Queen of France receives in scanter attire, I hear.  Sit you on yonder bench and play courtier amiably for once.”

She seemed so frail and white and young, lying there, her fair hair unpowdered and tumbled about her face—­ so childlike and helpless—­ that a strange and inexplicable apprehension filled me; and, scarce thinking what I did, I went over to her and knelt down beside her, putting one arm around her shoulders.

Her expression, which had been smiling and vaguely audacious, changed subtly.  She lay looking up at me very wistfully for a moment, then lifted her hands a little way.  I laid them to my lips, looking over them down into her altered eyes.

“Always,” she said under her breath, “always you have been kind and true, Euan, even when I have used you with scant courtesy.”

“You have never used me ill.”

“No—­ only to plague you as a girl torments what she truly loves....  Lois and I have spoken much of you together——­” She turned her head.  “Where are you, sweeting?”

Lois came from behind the blanket and knelt down so close to me that the fragrance of her freshened the air; and once again, as it happened at the first day’s meeting in Westchester, the same thrill invaded me., And I thought of the wild rose that starlight night, and how fitly was it her symbol and her flower.

Lana looked at us both, unsmiling; then drew her hands from mine and crook’d her arms behind her neck, cradling her head on them, looking at us both all the while.  Presently her lids drooped on her white cheeks.

When we rose on tiptoe, I thought she was asleep, but Lois was not certain; and as we crept out onto the rifle-platform and seated ourselves in a sheltered corner under the parapet, she said uneasily;

“Lanette is a strange maid, Euan.  At first I knew she disliked me.  Then, of a sudden, one day she came to me and clung like a child afraid.  And we loved from that minute....  It is strange.”

“Is she ill?”

“In mind, I think.”

“Why?”

“I do not know, Euan.”

“Is it love, think you—­ her disorder?”

“I do not know, I tell you.  Once I thought it was —­ that.  But knew not how to be certain.”

“Does Boyd still court her?”

“No—­ I do not know,” she said with a troubled look.

“Is it that affair which makes her unhappy?”

“I thought so once.  They were ever together.  Then she avoided him—­ or seemed to.  It was Betty Bleecker who interfered between them.  For Mrs. Bleecker was very wrathful, Euan, and Lana’s indiscretions madded her....  There was a scene....  So Boyd came no more, save when other officers came, which was every day.  Somehow I have never been certain that he and Lana did not meet in secret when none suspected.”

“Have you proof?” I asked, cold with rage.

She shook her head, and her gaze grew vague and remote.  After a while she seemed to put away her apprehensions, and, smiling, she turned to me, challenging me with her clear, sunny eyes: