nd 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 God, Chester! could you look at that child and
realize it? Even now, even now, sir, I believe--I believe,
someway--somehow--she is innocent."
"God grant it, sir!"
And then the colonel left the office, avoiding, as has been told, a word
with any man. Chester buttoned 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
com
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