es was pondering
over all that he had been told at the table, and the little that he had
wrung from her reluctant lips, putting them together with the frequent
questions asked him by the few women who had joined their husbands at
the cantonment,--questions so frequent and persistent as to whether he
often heard from his wife, and wasn't she soon coming, _very_ soon, to
join him, that even to his unsuspicious nature they carried a
significance he could not down, and now it seemed that Almira had gone
with a gay party to a supper and dance in town at a time when he
supposed that she was spending her hours with his friends, the
Cranstons, or in quiet and seclusion at her home. There, at least, he
showed his inexperience, for in nine cases out of ten the friends the
newly-arrived wife is surest to fancy in garrison are not those whose
praises her lord has been sounding for six months ahead. Of the hops and
dances and drives that had preceded this eventful evening he had as yet,
_mirabile dictu_, heard nothing beyond Mira's own meagre account. In
fact, he had no idea of them at all.

He was worn and weary after the long, hard eighty-mile ride. The fire
was warm, the room still and peaceful; no sound broke the silence but
Hurley's occasional step and soft whistle out in the "linter" at the
rear where lay his packing-boxes. Possibly Davies may have become
drowsy, dreamy, as he reclined there. At all events he never moved as a
quick, nervous step came bounding across the veranda and into the hall.
The door burst open and a voice, surely a little tremulous and agitated,
spoke low and quickly.

"Where are you, Sanders? Oh, say, will you do me a favor? I can't--at
least I don't want these other women to know. Was there ever such a
streak of hell's luck as this? He's home. I've got to go. Will you see
that Mrs. Davies gets this before to-night?"

And in the dim light of the little bachelor den, Percy Davies, slowly
turning, was aware of a stylishly-dressed, handsome young civilian,
whose face, though pale and apparently bruised, was vaguely familiar to
him, in whose outstretched hand was a little box-shaped packet. Just
then another step came bounding into the hall-way, into the room, and
the lawful occupant of the quarters halted short at sight of the two
tall, slender forms confronting each other, one that of the civilian,
slowly recoiling toward the door with twitching, tremulous hands, and a
face livid as death, the other, i