The silence was unbroken for a moment.  Nellie Travers could hear the beating of her own heart as she nestled closer to her sister and stole a hand into hers.  Mrs. Rayner was trying hard to be dutiful, stern, unbending, to keep her faith with the distant lover in the East, whether Nell was true or no; but she had been so humbled, so changed, so shaken, by the events of the past few weeks, that she felt all her old spirit of guardianship ebbing away.  “Must I give you up, Nell? and must he, too?—­Mr. Van Antwerp?”

“He has not answered my last letter, Kate.  It is nearly a week since I have heard from him.”

“What did you write, Nellie?”

“What I had done twice before,—­that he ought to release me.”

“And—­is Clancy’s the only confession you have heard to-day?”

“The only one.”  A pause:  then, “I know what you mean, Kate; but he is not the man to—­to offer his love to a girl he knows is pledged to another.”

“But if you were free, Nellie?  Tell me.”

“I have no right to say, Kate; but”—­and two big tears were welling up into her brave eyes, as she clasped her hands and stretched them yearningly before her—­“shall I tell you what I think a girl would say if she were free and had won his love?”

“What, Nellie?”

“She would say, ‘Ay.’  No woman with a heart could leave a man who has borne so much and come through it all so bravely.”

Poor Mrs. Rayner!  Humbled and chastened as she was, what refuge had she but tears, and then—­prayer?

XIX.

Within the week succeeding the departure of the Rayners and Miss Travers, Lieutenant Hayne’s brother-in-law and his remarkably attractive sister were with him in garrison and helping him fit up the new quarters which the colonel had rather insisted on his moving into and occupying, even though two unmarried subalterns had to move out and make way for him.  This they seemed rather delighted to do.  There was a prevailing sentiment at Warrener that nothing was too good for Hayne nowadays; and he took all this adulation so quietly and modestly that there was difficulty in telling just how it affected him.  Towards those who had known him well in the days of his early service he still maintained a dignity and reserve of manner that kept them at some distance.  To others, especially to the youngsters in the ——­th as well as to those in the Riflers, he unbent entirely, and was frank, unaffected, and warm-hearted.  He seemed to bask in the sunshine of the respect and consideration accorded him on every side.  Yet no one could say he seemed happy.  Courteous, grave far beyond his years, silent and thoughtful, he impressed them all as a man who had suffered too much ever again to be light-hearted.  Then it was more than believed he had fallen deeply in love with Nellie Travers; and that explained the rarity and sadness of his smile.  To the women he was