r," he went on still more gently,
"if perhaps her mother or father"--

"No," interrupted Peter almost brusquely, with the sudden conviction
that this was no time for revelation of his secret, "no, nothing."

"The doctor says," continued Lascelles with that hesitating, almost
mystic delicacy with which most gentlemen approach a subject upon which
their wives talk openly, "that it may be owing to Jenny's peculiar state
of health just now, you know, and that if--all went well, you know, and
there should be--don't you see--a little child"--

Peter interrupted him with a start. A child! Jenny's child! Silver
Cloud's grandchild! This was a complication he had not thought of.
No! It was too late to tell his secret now. He only nodded his head
abstractedly and said coldly, "I dare say he is right."

Nevertheless, Jenny was looking remarkably well. Perhaps it was the
excitement of travel and new surroundings; but her tall, lithe figure,
nearly half a head taller than her husband's, was a striking one among
the officers' wives in the commandant's sitting-room. Her olive cheek
glowed with a faint illuminating color; there was something even
patrician in her slightly curved nose and high cheek bones, and her
smile, rare even in her most excited moments, was, like her brother's,
singularly fascinating. The officers evidently thought so too, and when
the young lieutenant of the commissary escort, fresh from West Point
and Flirtation Walk, gallantly attached himself to her, the ladies were
slightly scandalized at the naive air of camaraderie with which Mrs.
Lascelles received his attentions. Even Peter was a little disturbed.
Only Lascelles, delighted with his wife's animation, and pleased at her
success, gazed at her with unqualified admiration. Indeed, he was
so satisfied with her improvement, and so sanguine of her ultimate
recovery, that he felt justified in leaving her with her brother and
returning to Omaha by the regular mail wagon next day. There was no
danger to be apprehended in her accompanying Peter; they would have
a full escort; the reservation lay in a direction unfrequented by
marauding tribes; the road was the principal one used by the government
to connect the fort with the settlements, and well traveled; the
officers' wives had often journeyed thither.

The childish curiosity and high spirits which Jenny showed on the
journey to the reservation was increased when she reached it and drew
up before the house of t