But Chester turned a deaf ear upon him, and walked away. He wanted to see Rollins, and went straight home.
"Why didn"t you tell me Miss Beaubien was out here last night?" was the question he asked as soon as he had entered the room where, all aglow from his cold bath, the youngster was dressing for breakfast. He colored vividly, then laughed.
"Well, you never gave me much chance to say anything, did you? You talked all the time, as I remember, and suddenly vanished and slammed the door. I would have told you had you asked me." But all the same it was evident for the first time that here was a subject Rollins was shy of mentioning.
"Did you go down and see them across sentry post?"
"Certainly. Jerrold asked me to. He said he had to take Miss Renwick home, and was too tired to come back,--was going to turn in. I was glad to do anything to be civil to the Suttons."
"Why, I"d like to know? They have never invited you to the house or shown you any attention whatever. You are not their style at all, Rollins, and I"m glad of it. It wasn"t for their sake you stayed there until one o"clock instead of being here in bed. I wish--" and he looked wistfully, earnestly, at his favorite now, "I wish I could think it wasn"t for the sake of Miss Beaubien"s black eyes and aboriginal beauty."
"Look here, captain," said Rollins, with another rush of color to his face; "you don"t seem to fancy Miss Beaubien, and--she"s a friend of mine, and one I don"t like to hear slightingly spoken of. You said a good deal last night that--well, wasn"t pleasant to hear."
"I know it, Rollins. I beg your pardon. I didn"t know then that you were more than slightly acquainted with her. I"m an old bat, and go out very little, but some things are pretty clear to my eyes, and--don"t you be falling in love with Nina Beaubien. That is no match for you."
"I"m sure you never had a word to say against her father. The old colonel was a perfect type of the French gentleman, from all I hear."
"Yes, and her mother is as perfect a type of a Chippewa squaw, if she is only a half-breed and claims to be only a sixteenth. Rollins, there"s Indian blood enough in Nina Beaubien"s little finger to make me afraid of her. She is strong as death in love or hate, and you must have seen how she hung on Jerrold"s every word all last winter. You must know she is not the girl to be lightly dropped now."
"She told me only a day or two ago they were the best of friends and had never been anything else," said Rollins, hotly.
"Has it gone that far, my boy? I had not thought it so bad, by any means. It"s no use talking with a man who has lost his heart: his reason goes with it." And Chester turned away.
"You don"t know anything about it," was all poor Rollins could think of as a suitable thing to shout after him; and it made no more impression than it deserved.
As has been said, Captain Chester had decided before seven o"clock that but one course lay open to him in the matter as now developed. Had Armitage been there he would have had an adviser, but there was no other man whose counsel he eared to seek. Old Captain Gray was as bitter against Jerrold as Chester himself, and with even better reason, for he knew well the cause of his little daughter"s listless manner and tearful eyes. She had been all radiance and joy at the idea of coming to Sibley and being near the great cities, but not one happy look had he seen in her sweet and wistful face since the day of her arrival. Wilton, too, was another captain who disliked Jerrold; and Chester"s rugged sense of fair play told him that it was not among the enemies of the young officer that he should now seek advice, but that if he had a friend among the older and wiser heads in the regiment it was due to him that that older and wiser head be given a chance to think a little for Jerrold"s sake. And there was not one among the seniors whom he could call upon. As he ran over their names, Chester for the first time realized that his ex-subaltern had not a friend among the captains and senior officers now on duty at the fort. His indifference to duties, his airy foppishness, his conceit and self-sufficiency, had all served to create a feeling against him; and this had been intensified by his conduct since coming to Sibley. The youngsters still kept up jovial relations with and professed to like him, but among the seniors there were many men who had only a nod for him on meeting. Wilton had epitomized the situation by saying he "had no use for a masher," and poor old Gray had one day scowlingly referred to him as "the professional beauty."
In view of all this feeling, Chester would gladly have found some man to counsel further delay; but there was none. He felt that he must inform the colonel at once of the fact that Mr. Jerrold was absent from his quarters at the time of the firing, of his belief that it was Jerrold who struck him and sped past the sentry in the dark, and of his conviction that the sooner the young officer was called to account for his strange conduct the better. As to the episodes of the ladder, the lights, and the form at the dormer-window, he meant, for the present at least, to lock them in his heart.
But he forgot that others too must have heard those shots, and that others too would be making inquiries.
VI.
A lovely morning it was that beamed on Sibley and the broad and beautiful valley of the Cloudwater when once the sun got fairly above the moist horizon. Mist and vapor and heavy cloud all seemed swallowed up in the gathering, glowing warmth, as though the King of Day had risen athirst and drained the welcoming cup of nature. It must have rained at least a little during the darkness of the night, for dew there could have been none with skies so heavily overcast, and yet the short smooth turf on the parade, the leaves upon the little shade-trees around the quadrangle, and all the beautiful vines here on the trellis-work of the colonel"s veranda, shone and sparkled in the radiant light. The roses in the little garden, and the old-fashioned morning-glory vines over at the east side, were all a-glitter in the flooding sunshine when the bugler came out from a glance at the clock in the adjutant"s office and sounded "sick-call" to the indifferent ear of the garrison. Once each day, at 7.30 a.m., the doctor trudged across to the hospital and looked over the half-dozen "hopelessly healthy" but would-be invalids who wanted to get off guard duty or a morning at the range. Thanks to the searching examination to which every soldier must be subjected before he can enter the service of Uncle Sam, and to the disciplined order of the lives of the men at Sibley, maladies of any serious nature were almost unknown. It was a gloriously healthy post, as everybody admitted, and, to judge from the specimen of young-womanhood that came singing, "blithe and low," out among the roses this same joyous morning, exuberant physical well-being was not restricted to the men.
A fairer picture never did dark beauty present than Alice Renwick, as she bent among the bushes or reached high among the vines in search of her favorite flowers. Tall, slender, willowy, yet with exquisitely-rounded form; slim, dainty little hands and feet; graceful arms and wrists all revealed in the flowing sleeves of her snowy, web-like gown, fitting her and displaying her sinuous grace of form as gowns so seldom do to-day. And then her face!--a glorious picture of rich, ripe, tropical beauty, with its great, soulful, sunlit eyes, heavily shaded though they were with those wondrous lashes; beautiful, too, in contour as was the lithe body, and beautiful in every feature, even to the rare and dewy curve of her red lips, half opened as she sang. She was smiling to herself, as she crooned her soft, murmuring melody, and every little while the great dark eyes glanced over towards the shaded doors of Bachelors" Row. There was no one up to watch and tell: why should she not look thither, and even stand one moment peering under the veranda at a darkened window half-way down the row, as though impatient at the non-appearance of some familiar signal? How came the laggard late? How slept the knight while here his lady stood impatient?
She twined the leaves and roses in a fragrant knot, ran lightly within and laid them on the snowy cloth beside the colonel"s seat at table, came forth and plucked some more and fastened them, blushing, blissful, in the lace-fringed opening of her gown, through which, soft and creamy, shone the perfect neck.
"Daisy, tell my fortune, pray: He loves me not,--he loves me,"
she blithely sang, then, hurrying to the gate, shaded her eyes with the shapely hand and gazed intently. "Twas nearing eight,--nearing breakfast-time. But some one was coming. Horrid! Captain Chester, of all men! Coming, of course, to see papa, and papa not yet down, and mamma had a headache and had decided not to come down at all, she would breakfast in her room. What girl on earth when looking and longing and waiting for the coming of a graceful youth of twenty-six would be anything but dismayed at the subst.i.tution therefor of a bulky, heavy-hearted captain of forty-six, no matter if he were still unmarried? And yet her smile was sweet and cordial.
"Why, good-morning, Captain Chester. I"m so glad to see you this bright day. Do come in and let me give you a rose. Papa will soon be down." And she opened the gate and held forth one long, slim hand. He took it slowly, as though in a dream, raising his forage-cap at the same time, yet making no reply. He was looking at her far more closely than he imagined. How fresh, how radiant, how fair and gracious and winning!
Every item of her attire was so pure and white and spotless; every fold and curve of her gown seemed charged with subtile, delicate fragrance, as faint and sweet as the shy and modest wood-violet"s. She noted his silence and his haggard eyes. She noted the intent gaze, and the color mounted straightway to her forehead.
"And have you no word of greeting for me?" she blithely laughed, striving to break through the awkwardness of his reserve, "or are you worn out with your night watch as officer of the day?"
He fairly started. Had she seen him, then? Did she know it was he who stood beneath her window, he who leaped in chase of that scoundrel, he who stole away with that heavy tell-tale ladder? and, knowing all this, could she stand there smiling in his face, the incarnation of maiden innocence and beauty? Impossible! Yet what could she mean?
"How did you know I had so long a vigil?" he asked, and the cold, strained tone, the half-averted eyes, the pallor of his face, all struck her at once. Instantly her manner changed:
"Oh, forgive me, captain. I see you are all worn out; and I"m keeping you here at the gate. Come to the piazza and sit down. I"ll tell papa you are here, for I know you want to see him." And she tripped lightly away before he could reply, and rustled up the stairs. He could hear her light tap at the colonel"s door, and her soft, clear, flute-like voice: "Papa, Captain Chester is here to see you."
Papa indeed! She spoke to him and of him as though he were her own. He treated her as though she were his flesh and blood,--as though he loved her devotedly. Even before she came had not they been prepared for this?
Did not Mrs. Maynard tell them that Alice had become enthusiastically devoted to her step-father and considered him the most knightly and chivalric hero she had ever seen? He could hear the colonel"s hearty and loving tone in reply, and then she came fluttering down again:
"Papa will be with you in five minutes, captain. But won"t you let me give you some coffee? It"s all ready, and you look so tired,--even ill."
"I have had a bad night," he answered, "but I"m growing old, and cannot stand sleeplessness as you young people seem to."
Was she faltering? He watched her eagerly, narrowly, almost wonderingly.
Not a trace of confusion, not a sign of fear; and yet had he not _seen_ her, and that other figure?
"I wish you could sleep as I do," was the prompt reply. "I was in the land of dreams ten minutes after my head touched the pillow, and mamma made me come home early last night because of our journey to-day. You know we are going down to visit Aunt Grace, Colonel Maynard"s sister, at Lake Sablon, and mamma wanted me to be looking my freshest and best,"
she said, "and I never heard a thing till reveille."
His eyes, sad, penetrating, doubting,--yet self-doubting, too,--searched her very soul. Unflinchingly the dark orbs looked into his,--even pityingly; for she quickly spoke again:
"Captain, _do_ come into the breakfast-room and have some coffee. You have not breakfasted, I"m sure."
He raised his hand as though to repel her offer,--even to put her aside.
He _must_ understand her. He _could_ not be hoodwinked in this way.
"Pardon me, Miss Renwick, but did you hear nothing strange last night or early this morning? Were you not disturbed at all?"
"I? No, indeed!" True, her face had changed now, but there was no fear in her eyes. It was a look of apprehension, perhaps, of concern and curiosity mingled, for his tone betrayed that something had happened which caused him agitation.
"And you heard no shots fired?"
"Shots! No! Oh, Captain Chester! what does it mean? _Who_ was shot? Tell me!"
And now, with paling face and wild apprehension in her eyes, she turned and gazed beyond him, past the vines and the shady veranda, across the sunshine of the parade and under the old piazza, searching that still closed and darkened window.
"Who?" she implored, her hands clasping nervously, her eyes returning eagerly to his face.
"It was not Mr. Jerrold," he answered, coldly. "He is unhurt, so far as shot is concerned."
"Then how is he hurt? Is he hurt at all?" she persisted; and then as she met his gaze her eyes fell, and the burning blush of maiden shame surged up to her forehead. She sank upon a seat and covered her face with her hands.
"I thought of Mr. Jerrold, naturally. He said he would be over early this morning," was all she could find to say.
"I have seen him, and presume he will come. To all appearances, he is the last man to suffer from last night"s affair," he went on, relentlessly,--almost brutally,--but she never winced. "It is odd you did not hear the shots. I thought yours was the northwest room,--this one?" he indicated, pointing overhead.
"So it is, and I slept there all last night and heard nothing,--not a thing. _Do_ tell me what the trouble was."