"And was that all? Did you see nothing more?"
"Colonel, I _did_ see, afterwards, a woman"s hand and arm closing the shade."
"My G.o.d! And she told me she slept the night through,--never waked or heard a sound!"
"Did you hear nothing yourself, colonel?"
"Nothing. When she came home from the party she stopped a moment, saying something to him at the door, then came into the library and kissed me good-night. I shut up the house and went to bed about half-past twelve, and her door was closed when I went to our room."
"So there were two closed doors, yours and hers, and the broad hall between you?"
"Certainly. We have the doors open all night that lead into the rear rooms, and their windows. This gives us abundant air. Alice always has the hall door closed at night."
"And Mrs. Maynard,--was she asleep?"
"No. Mrs. Maynard was lying awake, and seemed a little restless and disturbed. Some of the women had been giving her some hints about Jerrold and fretting her. You know she took a strange fancy to him at the start. It was simply because he reminded her so strongly of the boy she had lost. She told me so. But after a little she began to discover traits in him she did not like, and then his growing intimacy with Alice worried her. She would have put a stop to the doctor"s party,--to her going with him, I mean,--but the engagement was made some days ago. Two or three days since, she warned Alice not to trust him, she says; and it is really as much on this as any other account that we decided to get her away, off to see her aunt Grace. Oh, G.o.d! how blind we are! how blind we are!" And poor old Maynard bowed his head and almost groaned aloud.
Chester rose, and, in his characteristic way, began tramping nervously up and down. There was a knock at the door. "The adjutant"s compliments, and "twas time for guard-mount. Would the colonel wish to see him before he went out?" asked the orderly.
"I ought to go, sir," said Chester. "I am old officer of the day, and there will be just time for me to get into full uniform."
"Let them go on without you," said Maynard. "I cannot spare you now.
Send word to that effect. Now,--now about this man,--this Jerrold. What is the best thing we can do?--of course I know what he most deserves;--but what is the _best_ thing under all the circ.u.mstances? Of course my wife and Alice will leave to-day. She was still sleeping when I left, and, pray G.o.d, is not dreaming of this. It was nearly two before she closed her eyes last night; and I, too, slept badly. You have seen him. What does he say?"
"Denies everything,--anything,--challenges me to prove that he was absent from his house more than five minutes,--indeed, I could not, for he may have come in just after I left,--and pretended utter ignorance of my meaning when I accused him of striking me before I ordered the sentry to fire. Of course it is all useless now. When I confront him with this letter he _must_ give in. Then let him resign and get away as quietly as possible before the end of the week. No one need know the causes. Of course shooting is what he deserves; but shooting demands explanation.
It is better for your name, hers, and all, that he should be allowed to live than that the truth were suspected, as it would be if he were killed. Indeed, sir, if I were you I would take them to Sablon, keep them away for a fortnight, and leave him to me. It may be even judicious to let him go on with all his duties as though nothing had happened, as though he had simply been absent from reveille, and let the whole matter drop like that until all remark and curiosity is lulled; then you can send her back to Europe or the East,--time enough to decide on that; but I will privately tell him he must quit the service in six months, and show him why. It isn"t the way it ought to be settled; it probably isn"t the way Armitage would do it; but it is the best thing that occurs to me. One thing is certain: you and they ought to get away at once, and he should not be permitted to see her again. I can run the post a few days and explain matters after you go."
The colonel sat in wretched silence a few moments; then he arose:
"If it were not for _her_ danger,--her heart,--I would never drop the matter here,--never! I would see it through to the bitter end. But you are probably right as to the prudent course to take. I"ll get them away on the noon train: he thinks they do not start until later. Now I must go and face it. My G.o.d, Chester! could you look at that child and realize it? Even now, even now, sir, I believe--I believe, someway--somehow--she is innocent."
"G.o.d grant it, sir!"
And then the colonel left the office, avoiding, as has been told, a word with any man. Chester b.u.t.toned the tell-tale letter in an inner pocket, after having first folded the sheet lengthwise and then enclosed it in a long official envelope. The officers, wondering at the colonel"s distraught appearance, had come thronging in, hoping for information, and then had gone, unsatisfied and disgusted, practically turned out by their crabbed senior captain. The ladies, after chatting aimlessly about the quadrangle for half an hour, had decided that Mrs. Maynard must be ill, and, while most of them awaited the result, two of their number went to the colonel"s house and rang at the bell. A servant appeared: "Mrs. Maynard wasn"t very well this morning, and was breakfasting in her room, and Miss Alice was with her, if the ladies would please excuse them." And so the emissaries returned unsuccessful. Then, too, as we have seen, despite his good intention of keeping matters hushed as much as possible, Chester"s nervous irritability had got the better of him, and he had made damaging admissions to Wilton of the existence of a cause of worriment and perplexity, and this Wilton told without compunction. And then there was another excitement, that set all tongues wagging. Every man had heard what Chester said, that Mr. Jerrold must not quit the garrison until he had first come and seen the temporary commanding officer, and Hall had speedily carried the news to his friend.
"Are _you_ ready to go?" asked Mr. Jerrold, who was lacing his boots in the rear room.
"No. I"ve got to go and get into "cits" first."
"All right. Go, and be lively! I"ll wait for you at Murphy"s, beyond the bridge, provided you say nothing about it."
"You don"t mean you are going against orders?"
"Going? Of course I am. I"ve got old Maynard"s permission, and if Chester means to revoke it he"s got to get his adjutant here inside of ten seconds. What you tell me isn"t official. I"m off _now_!"
And when the adjutant returned to Captain Chester it was with the information that he was too late: Mr. Jerrold"s dog-cart had crossed the bridge five minutes earlier.
Perhaps an hour later the colonel sent for Chester, and the captain went to his house. The old soldier was pacing slowly up and down the parlor floor.
"I wanted you a moment. A singular thing has happened. You know that "Directoire" cabinet photo of Alice? My wife always kept it on her dressing-table, and this morning it"s gone. That frame--the silver filigree thing--was found behind a sofa-pillow in Alice"s room, and she declares she has no idea how it got there. Chester, is there any new significance in this?"
The captain bowed a.s.sent.
"What is it?"
"That photograph was seen by Major Sloat in Jerrold"s bureau-drawer at reveille this morning."
And such was the situation at Sibley the August day the colonel took his wife and her lovely daughter to visit Aunt Grace at Lake Sablon.
VIII.
In the big red omnibus that was slowly toiling over the dusty road several pa.s.sengers were making their way from the railway-station to the hotel at Lake Sablon. Two of them were women of mature years, whose dress and bearing betokened lives of ease and comfort; another was a lovely brunette of less than twenty, the daughter, evidently, of one of these ladies, and an object of loving pride to both. These three seemed at home in their surroundings, and were absorbed in the packet of letters and papers they had just received at the station. It was evident that they were not new arrivals, as were the other pa.s.sengers, who studied them with the half-envious feelings with which new-comers at a summer resort are apt to regard those who seem to have been long established there, and who gathered from the sc.r.a.ps of conversation that they had merely been over to say good-by to friends leaving on the very train which brought in the rest of what we good Americans term "the "bus-load." There were women among the newly-arrived who inspected the dark girl with that calm, unflinching, impertinent scrutiny and half-audibly whispered comment which, had they been of the opposite s.e.x, would have warranted their being kicked out of the conveyance, but which was ignored by the fair object and her friends as completely as were the commentators themselves. There were one or two men in the omnibus who might readily have been forgiven an admiring glance or two at so bright a vision of girlish beauty as was Miss Renwick this August afternoon, and they _had_ looked; but the one who most attracted the notice of Mrs. Maynard and Aunt Grace--a tall, stalwart, distinguished-looking party in gray travelling-dress--had taken his seat close to the door and was deep in the morning"s paper before they were fairly away from the station.
Laying down the letter she had just finished reading, Mrs. Maynard glanced at her daughter, who was still engaged in one of her own, and evidently with deep interest.
"From Fort Sibley, Alice?"
"Yes, mamma, all three,--Miss Craven, Mrs. Hoyt, and--Mr. Jerrold. Would you like to see it?" And, with rising color, she held forth the one in her hand.
"Not now," was the answer, with a smile that told of confidence and gratification both. "It is about the german, I suppose?"
"Yes. He thinks it outrageous that we should not be there,--says it is to be the prettiest ever given at the fort, and that Mrs. Hoyt and Mrs.
Craven, who are the managers for the ladies, had asked him to lead. He wants to know if we cannot possibly come."
"Are you not very eager to go, Alice? I should be," said Aunt Grace, with sympathetic interest.
"Yes, I am," answered Miss Renwick, reflectively. "It had been arranged that it should come off next week, when, as was supposed, we would be home after this visit. It cannot be postponed, of course, because it is given in honor of all the officers who are gathered there for the rifle-compet.i.tion, and that will be all over and done with to-day, and they cannot stay beyond Tuesday next. We must give it up, auntie," and she looked up smilingly, "and you have made it so lovely for me here that I can do it without a sigh. Think of that!--an army german!--and f.a.n.n.y Craven says the favors are to be simply lovely. Yes, I _did_ want to go, but papa said he felt unequal to it the moment he got back from Chicago, day before yesterday, and he certainly does not look at all well: so that ended it, and I wrote at once to Mrs. Hoyt. This is her answer now."
"What does she say?"
"Oh, it is very kind of her: she wants me to come and be her guest if the colonel is too ill to come and mamma will not leave him. She says Mr. Hoyt will come down and escort me. But I would not like to go without mamma," and the big dark eyes looked up wistfully, "and I know she does not care to urge papa when he seems so indisposed to going."
Mrs. Maynard"s eyes were anxious and troubled now. She turned to her sister-in-law:
"Do you think he seems any better, Grace? I do not."
"It is hard to say. He was so nervously anxious to get away to see the general the very day you arrived here that there was not a moment in which I could ask him about himself; and since his return he has avoided all mention of it beyond saying it is nothing but indigestion and he would be all right in a few days. I never knew him to suffer in that way in my life. Is there any regimental matter that can be troubling him?"
she asked, in lower tone.
"Nothing of any consequence whatever. Of course the officers feel chagrined over their defeat in the rifle-match. They had expected to stand very high, but Mr. Jerrold"s shooting was unexpectedly below the average, and it threw their team behind. But the colonel didn"t make the faintest allusion to it. That hasn"t worried him anywhere near as much as it has the others, I should judge."
"I do not think it was all Mr. Jerrold"s fault, mamma," said Miss Renwick, with gentle reproach and a very becoming flush. "I"m going to stand up for him, because I think they all blame him for other men"s poor work. He was not the only one on our team whose shooting was below former scores."
"They claim that none fell so far below their expectations as he, Alice.
You know I am no judge of such matters, but Mr. Hoyt and Captain Gray both write the colonel that Mr. Jerrold had been taking no care of himself whatever and was entirely out of form."