e question was,
"What do you suppose 'Pills' was driving at?"

There were two or three who knew. Captain Rayner went first to his
quarters, where he had a few moments' hurried consultation with his
wife; then they left the house together,--he to have a low-toned and
very stern talk to rather than with the abashed Clancy, who listened cap
in hand and with hanging head; she to visit the sick child of Mrs.
Flanigan, of Company K, whose quarters adjoined those to which the
Clancys had recently been assigned. When that Hibernian culprit returned
to his roof-tree, released from durance vile, he was surprised to
receive a kindly and sympathetic welcome from his captain's wife, who
with her own hand had mixed him some comforting drink and was planning
with Mrs. Clancy for their greater comfort. "If Clancy will only promise
to quit entirely!" interjected the partner of his joys and sorrows.

Later that day, when the doctor had a little talk with Clancy, the
ex-dragoon declared he was going to reform for all he was worth. He was
only a distress to everybody when he drank.

"All right, Clancy. And when you are perfectly yourself you can come and
see Lieutenant Hayne as soon as you like."

"Loot'nant Hayne is it, sir? Shure I'd be beggin' his pardon for the
vexation I gave him last night."

"But you have something you wanted to speak with him about. You said so
last night, Clancy," said the doctor, looking him squarely in the eye.

"Shure I was dhrunk, sir. I didn't mane it," he answered; but he shrank
and cowered.

The doctor turned and left him.

"If it's only when he's drunk that conscience pricks him and the truth
will out, then we must have him drunk again," quoth this unprincipled
practitioner.

That same afternoon Miss Travers found that a headache was the result of
confinement to an atmosphere somewhat heavily charged with electricity.
Mrs. Rayner seemed to bristle every time she approached her sister.
Possibly it was the heart, more than the head, that ached, but in either
case she needed relief from the exposed position she had occupied ever
since Kate's return from the Clancys' in the morning. She had been too
long under fire, and was wearied. Even the cheery visits of the garrison
gallants had proved of little avail, for Mrs. Rayner was in very ill
temper, and made snappish remarks to them which two of them resented and
speedily took themselves off. Later Miss Travers went to her room and
wrote a letter, and