"Crailey!" whispered Miss Betty, leaning heavily on the back of a
chair. "Crailey?" She looked at Mrs. Tanberry with vague interrogation,
but Mrs. Tanberry did not understand.

"Crailey!"

It was then that Crailey's eyelids fluttered and slowly opened; and his
wandering glance, dull at first, slowly grew clear and twinkling as it
rested on the ashy, stricken face of his best friend.

"Tom," he said, feebly, "it was worth the price, to wear your clothes
just once!"

And then, at last, Miss Betty saw and understood. For not the honest
gentleman, whom everyone except Robert Carewe held in esteem and
af-fection, not her father's enemy, Vanrevel, lay before her with the
death-wound in his breast for her sake, but that other--Crailey Gray,
the ne'er-do-weel and light-o'-love, Crailey Gray, wit, poet, and
scapegrace, the well-beloved town scamp.

He saw that she knew, and, as his brightening eyes wandered up to her,
he smiled faintly. "Even a bad dog likes to have his day," he whispered.

CHAPTER XIX. The Flag Goes Marching By

Will Cummings had abandoned the pen for the sword until such time as
Santa Anna should cry for quarter, and had left the office in charge
of an imported substitute; but late that night he came to his desk once
more, to write the story of the accident to Corporal Gray; and the tale
that he wrote had been already put into writing by Tom Vanrevel as it
fell from Crailey's lips, after the doctor had, come, so that none might
doubt it. No one did doubt it. What reason had Mr. Carewe to injure
Crailey Gray? Only five in Rouen knew the truth; for Nelson had gone
with his master, and, except Mamie, the other servants of the Carewe
household had been among the crowd in front of the Rouen House when the
shot was fired.

So the story went over the town: how Crailey had called to say good-by
to Mrs. Tanberry; how Mr. Carewe happened to be examining the musket his
father had carried in 1812, when the weapon was accidentally discharged,
the ball entering Crailey's breast; how Mr. Carewe, stricken with
remorse and horror over this frightful misfortune, and suffering too
severe anguish of mind to remain upon the scene, of the tragedy which
his carelessness had made, had fled, attended by his servant; and how
they had leaped aboard the evening boat as it was pulling out, and were
now on their way down the river.

And this was the story, too, that Tom told Fanchon; for it was he who
brought her to Crai