Stannard’s battalion of the cavalry came marching into the post two days after the fire, and created a diversion in the garrison talk, which for one long day had been all of that dramatic incident and its attendant circumstances.  In social circles, among the officers and ladies, the main topic was the conduct of Mr. Hayne and the injuries he had sustained as a consequence of his gallant rescue.  Among the enlisted men and the denizens of Sudsville the talk was principally of the revelation of Mrs. Clancy’s hoard of greenbacks.  But in both circles a singular story was just beginning to creep around, and it was to the effect that Clancy had cried aloud and fainted dead away and that Mrs. Clancy had gone into hysterics when they were told that Lieutenant Hayne was the man to whom the one owed his life and the other her money.  Some one met Captain Rayner on the sidewalk the morning Stannard came marching home, and asked him if he had heard the queer story about Clancy.  He had not, and it was told him then and there.  Rayner did not even attempt to laugh at it or turn it off in any way.  He looked dazed, stunned, for a moment, turned very white and old-looking, and, hardly saying good-day to his informant, faced about and went straight to his quarters.  He was not among the crowd that gathered to welcome the incoming cavalrymen that bright, crisp, winter day; and that evening Mrs. Rayner went to the hospital to ask what she could do for Clancy and his wife.  Captain Rayner always expected her to see that every care and attention was paid to the sick and needy of his company, she explained to the doctor, who could not recall having seen her on a similar errand before, although sick and needy of Company B were not unknown in garrisons where he had served with them.  She spent a good while with Mrs. Clancy, whom she had never noticed hitherto, much to the laundress’s indignation, and concerning whose conduct she had been known to express herself in terms of extreme disapprobation.  But in times of suffering such things are forgotten:  Mrs. Rayner was full of sympathy and interest; there was nothing she was not eager to send them, and no thanks were necessary.  She could never do too much for the men of her husband’s company.

Yet there was a member of her husband’s company on whom in his suffering neither she nor the captain saw fit to call.  Mr. Hayne’s eyes were seriously injured by the flames and heat, and he was now living in darkness.  It might be a month, said the doctor, before he could use his eyes again.

“Only think of that poor fellow, all alone out there on that ghastly prairie and unable to read!” was the exclamation of one of the cavalry ladies in Mrs. Rayner’s presence; and, as there was an awkward silence and somebody had to break it, Mrs. Rayner responded,—­

“If I lived on Prairie Avenue I should consider blindness a blessing.”