o ill, apparently,
that Captain Baird was much worried. At night he begged to be put ashore
at the barracks instead of going on up to town, and Baird had become so
troubled about him that he sent his second officer in the gig with him,
landed him on the levee opposite the sally-port, and there, thanking
them heartily, but declining further assistance, Waring had hurried
through the entrance into the barrack square. Mr. Royce, the second
officer, said there was considerable excitement, beating of drums and
sounding of bugles, at the post, as they rowed towards the shore. He did
not learn the cause. Captain Baird was most anxious to learn if the
gentleman had safely reached his destination. Cram replied that he had,
but in a state bordering on delirium and unable to give any coherent
account of himself. He could tell he had been aboard the Ambassador and
the Tampa, but that was about all.

And then they told Baird that what Waring probably saw was Wednesday's
paper with the details of the inquest on the body of Lascelles and the
chain of evidence pointing to himself as the murderer. This caused
honest Captain Baird to lay ten to one he wasn't, and five to one he'd
never heard of it till he got the paper above Pilot Town. Whereupon all
three officers clapped the Briton on the back and shook him by the hand
and begged his company to dinner at the barracks and at Moreau's; and
then, while Reynolds sped to the police-office and Kinsey back to
Colonel Braxton, whom he represented at the interview, Cram remounted,
and, followed by the faithful Jeffers, trotted up Rampart Street and
sent in his card to Madame Lascelles, and Madame's maid brought back
reply that she was still too shocked and stricken to receive visitors.
So also did Madame d'Hervilly deny herself, and Cram rode home to Nell.

"It is useless," he said. "She will not see me."

"Then she shall see me," said Mrs. Cram.

And so a second time did Jeffers make the trip to town that day, this
time perched with folded arms in the rumble of the pony-phaeton.

And while she was gone, the junior doctor was having the liveliest
experience of his few years of service. Scorched and burned though she
was, Mrs. Doyle's faculties seemed to have returned with renewed
acuteness and force. She demanded to be taken to her husband's side, but
the doctor sternly refused. She demanded to be told his condition, and
was informed that it was so critical he must not be disturbed,
especi