ic passion. It occurred to him that
the discovery might be made very useful. He was plainly losing ground
there. Invitations to tea and dinner had not been forthcoming since
Truscott's squadron marched away, and his efforts to see Miss Sanford
alone had been frustrated. Having secured the detail which kept him at
the post while the regiment was out roughing it, he relaxed the
assiduity of his attentions to Mrs. Whaling, but kept up his hand with
the old colonel through the medium of pool and billiards, though he lost
less frequently. He was always having confidential chats with the
colonel, and when Captain Buxton came through on his way to catch the
regiment, three days after Ray's departure, Gleason took him to see the
colonel, and the three were closeted for some time together. It worried
Mrs. Stannard, who felt sure there was mischief brewing, and she so
wrote to the major, who tackled Buxton the moment he joined with
questions about Ray, and Buxton was dumb as Sam Weller's drum with a
hole in it. Ray was there and "chipper" as a cricket. Everybody noted
how blithe, buoyant, and energetic he was, but this very trait prevented
Stannard's having more than one talk with him before the separation of
Wayne's command from the regiment. Ray was off on scouts from morning
till night. Stannard frankly told him how worried he had been, and Ray
looked amazed, declaring he had never been more temperate, and that his
accounts were straight as a string. He had played billiards but had not
touched a card.

When told of the allegation that he had been incessantly with Rallston,
and had cut loose from Buxton and Gleason, Ray replied that it was
incomprehensible to him how any man who knew Buxton and Gleason could
blame him for that. He never spoke to Gleason, and as the two were
always together, he had no wish to embarrass their good times. He was
with Rallston, his brother-in-law, who had been most kind, hospitable,
and jolly; but Ray went on to say he found that Rallston tried to be
sharp in palming off some inferior horses upon them, and he had blocked
it. This had caused a "split," so to speak, but nothing of consequence,
as he had immediately started to rejoin. More than this there was no
time to talk of. Ray went with Wayne, Stannard with the --th, and they
saw nothing more of each other for many a long day. Meantime, Gleason
was getting in his work. Stannard had written briefly to his wife to
tell her what Ray had said, but s