Part 14 (1/2)

There was silence when the music ceased. She had turned her face towards the church, and, as the melody died away in one prolonged, triumphant chord, she still stood in reverent att.i.tude, as though listening for the words of benediction. He, too, was silent, but his eyes were fixed on her. He was thirty-five, she not twenty. He had lived his soldier life wifeless, but, like other soldiers, his heart had had its rubs and aches in the days gone by. Years before he had thought life a black void when the girl he fancied while yet he wore the Academic gray calmly told him she preferred another. Nor had the intervening years been devoid of their occasional yearnings for a mate of his own in the isolation of the frontier or the monotony of garrison life; but flitting fancies had left no trace upon his strong heart. The love of his life only dawned upon him at this late day when he looked into her glorious eyes and his whole soul went out in pa.s.sionate wors.h.i.+p of the fair girl whose presence made that sunlit lane a heaven. Were he to live a thousand years, no scene on earth could rival in his eyes the love-haunted woodland pathway wherein like forest queen she stood, the suns.h.i.+ne and leafy shadows dancing over her graceful form, the golden-rod enhancing her dark and glowing beauty, the sacred influences of the day throwing their mystic charm about her as though angels guarded and s.h.i.+elded her from harm. His life had reached its climax; his fate was sealed; his heart and soul were centred in one sweet girl,--and all in one brief hour in the woodland lane at Sablon.

She could not fail to see the deep emotion in his eyes as at last she turned to break the silence.

”Shall we go?” she said, simply.

”It is time; but I wish we could remain.”

”You do not go to church very often at Sibley, do you?”

”I have not, heretofore; but you would teach me to wors.h.i.+p.” ”You _have_ taught me,” he muttered below his breath, as he extended a hand to a.s.sist her down the sloping bank towards the avenue. She looked up quickly once more, pleased, yet shy, and s.h.i.+fted her great bunch of golden-rod so that she could lay her hand in his and lean upon its steady strength down the incline; and so, hand in hand, with old Dobbin ambling placidly behind, they pa.s.sed out from the shaded pathway to the glow and radiance of the sunlit road.

XII.

”Colonel Maynard, I admit everything you say as to the weight of the evidence,” said Frank Armitage, twenty minutes later, ”but it is my faith--understand me: my _faith_, I say--that she is utterly innocent.

As for that d.a.m.nable letter, I do not believe it was ever written to her. It is some other woman.”

”What other is there, or was there?” was the colonel's simple reply.

”That is what I mean to find out. Will you have my baggage sent after me to-night? I am going at once to the station, and thence to Sibley. I will write you from there. If the midnight visitor should prove to have been Jerrold, he can be made to explain. I have always held him to be a conceited fop, but never either crack-brained or devoid of principle.

There is no time for explanation _now_. Good-by; and keep a good lookout. That fellow may be here again.”

And in an hour more Armitage was skimming along the winding river-side _en route_ to Sibley. He had searched the train from pilot to rear platform, and no man who in the faintest degree resembled Mr. Jerrold was on board. He had wired to Chester that he would reach the fort that evening, but would not resume duty for a few days. He made another search through the train as they neared the city, and still there was no one who in stature or appearance corresponded with the descriptions given him of the sinewy visitor.

Late in the afternoon Chester received him as he alighted from the train at the little station under the cliff. It was a beautiful day, and numbers of people were driving or riding out to the fort, and the high bridge over the gorge was constantly resounding to the thunder of hoofs.

Many others, too, had come out on the train; for the evening dress-parade always attracted a swarm of visitors. A corporal of the guard, with a couple of men, was on hand to keep vigilant eye on the arrivals and to persuade certain proscribed parties to re-enter the cars and go on, should they attempt to revisit the post, and the faces of these were lighted up as they saw their old adjutant; but none others of the garrison appeared.

”Let us wait a moment and get these people out of the way,” said Armitage. ”I want to talk with you. Is Jerrold back?”

”Yes. He came in just ten minutes after I telegraphed to you, was present at inspection, and if it had not been for your despatch this morning I should not have known he had remained out of quarters. He appeared to resent my having been to his quarters,--calls it spying, I presume.”

”What permission had he to be away?”

”I gave him leave to visit town on personal business yesterday afternoon. He merely asked to be away a few hours to meet friends in town, and Mr. Hall took tattoo roll-call for him. As I do not require any other officer to report the time of his return, I did not exact it of him; but of course no man can be away after midnight without special permission, and he was gone all night. What is it, Armitage? Has he followed her down there?”

”Somebody was there last night and capsized the colonel pretty much as he did you the night of the ladder episode,” said Armitage, coolly.

”By heaven! and I let him go!”

”How do you know 'twas he?”

”Who else could it be, Armitage?”

”That's what the colonel asks; but it isn't clear to me yet awhile.”

”I wish it were less clear to me,” said Chester, gloomily. ”The worst is that the story is spreading like a pestilence all over the post. The women have got hold of it, and there is all manner of talk. I shouldn't be surprised if Mrs. Hoyt had to be taken violently ill. She has written to invite Miss Renwick to visit her, as it is certain that Colonel and Mrs. Maynard cannot come, and Hoyt came to me in a horror of amaze yesterday to know if there were any truth in the rumor that I had caught a man coming out of Mrs. Maynard's window the other night. I would tell him nothing, and he says the ladies declare they won't go to the german if _she_ does. Heavens! I'm thankful you are come. The thing has been driving me wild these last twelve hours. I wanted to go away myself.

_Is_ she coming up?”