flight and probable future.  At Rayner’s, people spoke of these things very guardedly, because every one saw that the captain was moved to the depths of his nature.  He was solemnity itself, and Mrs. Rayner watched him with deep anxiety, fearful that he might be exposed to some thoughtless or malicious questioning.  Her surveillance was needless, however:  even Ross made no allusion to the events of the morning, though he communicated to his fellows in the subsequent confidences of the club-room that Midas looked as though he’d been pulled through a series of knot-holes.  “Looks more’s though he were going to his own funeral than on leave,” he added.

As for Hayne, he had been closeted with the colonel and Major Waldron for some time after his return,—­a conference that was broken in upon by the startling news of Clancy’s death.  Then he had joined his friend the doctor at the hospital, and was still there, striving to comfort little Kate, who could not be induced to leave her father’s rapidly stiffening form, when Mrs. Waldron re-entered the room.  Drawing the child to her side and folding her motherly arms about her, she looked up in Hayne’s pale face: 

“They are going in five minutes.  Don’t you mean to see her?”

“Not there,—­not under his roof or in that crowd.  I will go to the station.”

“I must run over and say good-by in a moment,—­when the carriage goes around.  Shall—­shall I say you will come?”

There was a light in his blue eyes she was just beginning to notice now as she studied his face.  A smile flickered one instant about the corners of his mouth, and then he held out his hand: 

“She knows by this time, Mrs. Waldron.”

An hour later Mrs. Rayner was standing on the platform at the station, Ross and others of her satellites hanging about her; Captain Rayner was talking in subdued tones with one or two of the senior officers; Miss Travers, looking feverishly pretty, was chatting busily with Royce and Foster, though a close observer could have noted that her dark eyes often sought the westward prairie over which wound the road to the distant post.  It was nearly train-time, and three or four horsemen could be seen at various distances, while, far out towards the fort, long skirmish-lines and fluttering guidons were sweeping over the slopes in mimic war-array.

“I have missed all this,” she said, pointing to the scene; “and I do love it so that it seems hard to go just as all the real soldier life is beginning.”

“Goodness knows you’ve had offers enough to keep you here,” said Foster, with not the blithest laugh in the world.  “Any girl who will go East and marry a ‘cit’ and leave six or seven penniless subs sighing behind her, I have my opinion of:  she’s eminently level-headed,” he added, with rueful and unexpected candor.

“I have hopes of Miss Travers yet,” boomed Royce, in his ponderous basso,—­“not personal hopes, Foster; you needn’t feel for your pistol,—­but I believe that her heart is with the army, like the soldier’s daughter she is.”  And, audacious as was the speech and deserving of instant rebuke, Mr. Royce was startled to see her reddening vividly.  He would have plunged into hasty apology, but Foster plucked his sleeve: