Travers closed the door. It was now useless to return to her
letter: so she strolled into the parlor just as she heard her sister's
voice at the kitchen door:

"Come right in here, Mrs. Clancy. Now, quick, what is it?"

And from the dining-room came the answer, hurried, half whispered, and
mysterious,--

"He's been drinkin' ever since he got out of hospital, ma'am, an' he's
worse than ever about Loot'nant Hayne. It's mischief he'll be doin',
ma'am: he's crazy-like--"

"Mrs. Clancy, you _must_ watch him. You--Hush!"

And here she stopped short, for, in astonishment at what she had already
heard, and in her instant effort to hear no more of what was so
evidently not intended for her, Miss Travers hurried from the parlor,
the swish of her skirts telling loudly of her presence there. She went
again to her room. What could it mean? Why was her proud, imperious Kate
holding secret interviews with this coarse and vulgar woman? What
concern was it of hers that Clancy should be "worse" about Mr. Hayne? It
could not mean that the mischief he would do was mischief _to_ the man
who had saved his life and his property. That was out of the question.
It could not mean that the poor, broken-down, drunken fellow had the
means in his power of further harming a man who had already been made to
suffer so much. Indeed, Kate's very exclamation, the very tone in which
she spoke, showed a distress of mind that arose from no fear for one
whom she hated as she hated Hayne. Her anxiety was personal. It was for
her husband and for herself she feared, or woman's tone and tongue never
yet revealed a secret. Nellie Travers stood in her room stunned and
bewildered, yet trying hard to recall and put together all the scattered
stories and rumors that had reached her about the strange conduct of
Clancy after he was taken to the hospital,--especially about his
heart-broken wail when told that it was Lieutenant Hayne who had rescued
him and little Kate from hideous death. Somewhere, somehow, this man was
connected with the mystery which encircled the long-hidden truth in
Hayne's trouble. Could it be possible that he did not realize it, and
that her sister had discovered it? Could it be--oh, heaven! _no!_--could
it be that Kate was standing between that lonely and friendless man and
the revelation that would set him right? She could not believe it of
her! She would not believe it of her sister! And yet what did Kate mean
by charging Mrs. Clancy to wat