his in a most telling way. Once there, they looked squarely into the
clear blue depths of his, and never flinched. "It seemed to me several
times at Sibley that the young officers deserved more consideration and
courtesy than their captains accorded them. It was not you alone that I
heard of."

"I am profoundly gratified to learn that somebody else is a brute," he
answered, trying to look grave, but with that irrepressible merriment
twitching at the corners of his mouth and giving sudden gleams of his
firm white teeth through the thick moustache. "You are come to us just
in time, Miss Renwick, and if you will let me come and tell you all my
sorrows the next time the colonel pitches into me for something wrong in
B Company, I'll give you full permission to overhaul me for everything
or anything I say and do to the youngsters. Is it a bargain?" And he
held out his big, firm hand.

"I think you are--very different from what I heard," was all her answer,
as she looked up in his eyes, twinkling as they were with fun. "Oh, we
are to shake hands on it as a bargain? Is that it? Very well, then."

IX.

When Captain Armitage left the cottage that night he did not go at once
to his own room. Brief as was the conversation he had enjoyed with Miss
Renwick, it was all that Fate vouchsafed him for that date at least. The
entire party went to tea together at the hotel, but immediately
thereafter the colonel carried Armitage away, and for two long hours
they were closeted over some letters that had come from Sibley, and when
the conference broke up and the wondering ladies saw the two men come
forth it was late,--almost ten o'clock,--and the captain did not venture
beyond the threshold of the sitting-room. He bowed and bade them a
somewhat ceremonious good-night. His eyes rested--lingered--on Miss
Renwick's uplifted face, and it was the picture he took with him into
the stillness of the summer night.

The colonel accompanied him to the steps, and rested his hand upon the
broad gray shoulder.

"God only knows how I have needed you, Armitage. This trouble has nearly
crushed me, and it seemed as though I were utterly alone. I had the
haunting fear that it was only weakness on my part and my love for my
wife that made me stand out against Chester's propositions. He can only
see guilt and conviction in every new phase of the case, and, though
you see how he tries to spare me, his letters give no hope of any other
conclusion."