," was the sole reply, as the girl
settled back dejectedly upon the pillows.

"I've tried to, child," answered her hostess kindly, patiently. "There
isn't a court in the army that would sentence him to more than a brief
confinement to limits, and reprimand." Yet Mrs. Sumter spoke with much
less confidence than on Saturday. Had not her husband _had_ to tell her
his application for leave was withdrawn, and why? Had not Doctor
Larrabee admitted to her that the colonel spoke of misdeeds far more
serious for which Lanier must suffer? Was there not, indeed, a story in
circulation, mainly in the Snaffle set, of a two-days escapade when the
regiment camped near Frayne, and then a financial transaction in which
Lanier had been involved--something growing out of an affair up on the
Yellowstone--something including that young civilian friend of his, the
collegian turned cowboy--Mr. Watson Lowndes?

Even as she strove to assure Miss Arnold, for the twentieth time, that a
military arrest was far more portentious in sound than in effect,
something in Kate's determined silence and Miriam's insistence added to
the effect of these rumors. Could it be that the boy had confided to the
daughter, hitherto his stanch friend and ally, that which he dare not
confide to her, his captain's wife? Could this account for the fact
that, though it was impossible to conceal his love for Miriam, he never
yet had owned it to her--to her to whom it was now obvious that the
avowal would mean so much--so very much?

Then another thing weighed heavily upon the brave heart of this loving
friend and mother. Never had she known her child to be so silent, so
strange, as now. Ever since Friday night she seemed to avoid all mention
of the affair, to shrink from the subject--she who had ever been
frankness itself--she who had never had a thought the mother did not
share. She had become fitful and nervous. She seemed oppressed with some
secret. In the long hours of their enforced confinement, with the lamps
burning on the ground-floor by day as well as by night, Mrs. Sumter had
pondered much over the result of her husband's investigations. Although
Miriam's desk was open and its contents lay scattered on the table,
nothing was missing, even to the packet of ten-and twenty-dollar
"greenbacks" in its secret drawer. If robbery had been the object of the
intruder, he had neglected his opportunity, or else been frightened off
in time. If robbery was not his object, th