loved "Pat"--and speedily the story was told of his devotion to her
when she was Nita Terriss, of their correspondence, of their engagement to
be married on his graduation, which in strict confidence he had imparted
to his roommate, who kept it inviolate until after her sudden union with
Colonel Frost and poor "Pat's" equally sudden disappearance. Everybody,
Frost included, knew that the young man who had accosted her must be
Latrobe, and Frost by this time knew that it must have been he who caused
her shock at the Arlington. He raged in his jealous heart. He employed
detectives to find the fellow, swearing he would have him arrested. He
became morose and gloomy, for all the arts by which Mrs. Garrison
persuaded him that Nita looked up to him with admiration and reverence
that would speedily develop into wifely love were now proved to be
machinations. He knew that Nita feared him, shrank from him and was very
far from loving him, and he believed that despite her denials and fears
and protestations she loved young Latrobe. He wrote angrily, reproachfully
to Margaret, who, now that her fish was hooked, did not greatly exert
herself to soothe or reassure him. That he could ever use violence to one
so sweet and fragile as Nita she would not believe for an instant. Then
the nurse, still retained, heard bitter words from the colonel as one
morning she came to the door with Mrs. Frost's breakfast, and while she
paused, uncertain about entering at such a time, he rushed angrily forth
and nearly collided with her. Mrs. Frost was in tears when the nurse
finally entered, and the breakfast was left untouched.
Late that afternoon, just after the various trunks and boxes of the
Frosts that were to go by the transport were packed and ready, and Mrs.
Frost, looking stronger at last, though still fragile, almost ethereal,
was returning from a drive with one of her friends, the attention of the
two ladies was drawn to a crowd gathering rapidly on the sidewalk not far
from the Baldwin Hotel. There was no shouting, no commotion, nothing but
the idle curiosity of men and boys, for a young soldier, a handsome,
slender, dark-eyed, dark-complexioned fellow of twenty-one or two, had
been arrested by a patrol and there they stood, the sergeant and his two
soldiers fully armed and equipped, the hapless captive with his arms half
filled with bundles, and over the heads of the little throng the ladies
could see that he was pleading earnestly with hi
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