Part 18 (1/2)

”Pardon my interruption,” he explained, bowing, ”but you were gone so long, Mrs. Dupont, I feared some accident.”

She laughed lightly.

”You are very excusable. No doubt I have been here longer than I supposed.”

The officer's eyes surveyed the soldier standing erect, his hand lifted in salute. The situation puzzled him.

”Sergeant Hamlin, how are you here? On leave?”

”Yes, sir.”

”Of course this is rather unusual, Captain Barrett,” said the lady hastily, tapping the astonished officer lightly with her fan, ”but I was once quite well acquainted with Sergeant Hamlin when he was a major of the Fourth Texas Infantry during the late war. He and my husband were intimates. Naturally I was delighted to meet with him again.”

The Captain stared at the man's rigid figure.

”Good Lord, I never knew that, Hamlin,” he exclaimed. ”Glad to know it, my man. You see,” he explained lamely, ”we get all kinds of fellows in the ranks, and are not interested in their past history. I 've had Hamlin under my command for two years now, and hanged if I knew anything about him, except that he was a good soldier. Were you ready to go, Mrs. Dupont?”

”Oh, yes; we have exhausted all our reminiscences. Good-bye, Sergeant; so glad to have met you again.”

She extended her ungloved hand, a single diamond glittering in the light. He accepted it silently, aware of the slight pressure of her fingers. Then the Captain a.s.sisted her through the window, and the falling curtain veiled them from view.

CHAPTER XVIII

ANOTHER MESSAGE

Hamlin sank back on the bench and leaned his head on his hand. Had anything been accomplished by this interview? One thing, at least--he had thoroughly demonstrated that the charm once exercised over his imagination by this beautiful woman had completely vanished. He saw her now as she was--heartless, selfish, using her spell of beauty for her own sordid ends. If there had been left a shred of romance in his memory of her, it was now completely shattered. Her coolness, her adroit changing of moods, convinced him she was playing a game. What game? Nothing in her words had revealed its nature, yet the man instinctively felt that it must involve Molly McDonald. Laboriously he reviewed, word by word, each sentence exchanged, striving to find some clue. He had p.r.i.c.ked her in the Gaskins affair, there was no doubt of that; she knew, or at least suspected, the party firing the shot. She denied at first having been married to Le Fevre, and yet later had been compelled to acknowledge that marriage. There then was a deliberate falsehood, which must have been told for a purpose. What purpose? Did she imagine it would make any difference with him, or did she seek to s.h.i.+eld Le Fevre from discovery? The latter reason appeared the more probable, for the man must have been in the neighborhood lately, else where did that haversack come from?

So engrossed was Hamlin with these thoughts that he hardly realized that some one had lifted the window curtain cautiously. The beam of light flashed across him, disappearing before he could lift his head to ascertain the cause. Then a voice spoke, and he leaned back to listen.

”Not there; gone back to the dance likely, while we were at the bar.”

”n.o.body out there?” this fellow growled his words.

”Some soldier asleep with his head on the rail; drunk, I reckon. Who was she with this time?”

”Barrett.”

”Who? Oh, yes, the fellow who brought in that troop of the Seventh.

Lord, the old girl is getting her hooks into him early. Well, as long as Gaskins is laid up, she may as well amuse herself somewhere else.

Barrett is rather a good looker, isn't he? Do you know anything about the man? Has he got any stuff?”

”Don't know,” answered the gruff voice. ”He 's a West Pointer. Vera likes to amuse herself once in a while; that's the woman of it. Heard from Gaskins to-night?”

”Oh, he 's all right,” the man laughed. ”That little p.r.i.c.k frightened him though. Shut up like a clam.”

”So I heard. He 'll pay to keep the story quiet, all right. As soon as he is well enough to come down here, we 'll tap his bundle. Swore he was shot by a cavalry sergeant, did n't he?”

”And sticks to it like a mule. Must have it in for that fellow. Well, it helped our get-a-way.”