“I did not tell the entire truth,” she said in a low, excited voice.  “I heard your regiment was here; Ailsa learned it from me.  I was coming anyway to see you.”

“To see me, Letty?” he repeated, surprised and smiling.

“Yes,” she said, losing what little colour remained in her cheeks.  “I am in—­in much—­anxiety—­to know—­what to do.”

“Can I help you?”

She looked wistfully at him; the tears rushed into her eyes; she dropped on her knees at his bedside and hid her face on his hands.

[Illustration:  “She dropped on her knees at his bedside and hid her face on his hands.”]

“Letty—­Letty!” he said in astonishment, “what on earth has happened?”

She looked up, lips quivering, striving to meet his gaze through her tears.

“Dr. Benton is here. . . .  He—­he has asked me to—­marry him.”

Berkley lay silent, watching her intently.

“Oh, I know—­I know,” she sobbed.  “I can’t, can I?  I should have to tell him—­and he would never speak to me again—­never write to me—­never be what he has been all these months!—­I know I cannot marry him.  I came to tell you—­to ask—­but it’s no use—­no use.  I knew what you would say——­”

“Letty!  Wait a moment——­”

She rose, controlling herself with a desperate effort.

“Forgive me, Mr. Berkley; I didn’t mean to break down; but I’m so tired—­and—­I wanted you—­I needed to hear you tell me what was right. . . .  But I knew already.  Even if I were—­were treacherous enough to marry him—­I know he would find me out. . . .  I can’t get away from it—­I can’t seem to get away.  Yesterday, in camp, the 20th Cavalry halted—­and there was John Casson!—­And I nearly dropped dead beside Dr. Benton—­oh the punishment for what I did!—­the awful punishment!—­and Casson stared at me and said:  ’My Lord, Letty! is that you?’”

She buried her burning cheeks in her hands.

“I did not lie to him.  I offered him my hand; and perhaps he saw the agony in my face, for he didn’t say anything about the Canterbury, but he took off his forage cap and was pleasant and kind.  And he and Dr. Benton spoke to each other until the bugles sounded for the regiment to mount.”

She flung her slender arm out in a tragic gesture toward the horizon.  “The world is not wide enough to hide in,” she said in a heart-breaking voice.  “I thought it was—­but there is no shelter—­no place—­no place in all the earth!”

“Letty,” he said slowly, “if your Dr. Benton is the man I think he is—­and I once knew him well enough to judge—­he is the only man on earth fit to hear the confession you have made this day to me.”

She looked at him, bewildered.

“I advise you to love him and marry him.  Tell him about yourself if you choose; or don’t tell him.  There is a vast amount of nonsense talked about the moral necessity of turning one’s self inside out the moment one comes to marry.  Let me tell you, few men can do it; and their fiancees survive the shock.  So, few men are asses enough to try it.  As for women, few have any confessions to make.  A few have.  You are one.”