"Frank?" I asked, feeling glad of this opportunity to learn more of her
relationships. "You forget, possibly, that your friends are strange to
me. You refer to the gentleman who expected to meet you on the road?"

"To Major Brennan, yes."

There was nothing about the tone of her reply that invited me to press
the inquiry further. One thing, however, was reasonably certain,--the
man she called "Frank" could not be her father. I longed to ask if he
was a brother, but the restraint of her whole manner repelled the
suggestion.

"Did I understand that you have nursed in the Federal hospitals at
Baltimore?" I questioned, more to continue the conversation than from
any deep interest.

"Merely as a volunteer, and when the regular nurses were especially
busy. Major Brennan was stationed there for some time when I first
visited him, and I felt it my duty as a loyal woman to aid the poor
fellows."

"It was surely far from being an agreeable task to one of your
refinement."

"Oh, it was not that that made it so hard," and her eyes were upon me
now unflinchingly. "It was the constant sight of so much misery one was
unable to relieve. Besides, that was nearly a year ago; I was very
young, just from school, and every form of suffering was new and
terrible to me."