stared with all his eyes and listened with all his ears, starting guiltily when he heard a martial footstep coming quickly up the path, and faced the intruder rather unsteadily.  It was only the corporal of the guard, and he glanced at his superior, brought his fur-gauntleted hand in salute to the rifle on his shoulder, and passed on.  The next moment Buxton fairly gasped with amaze:  he stared an instant at the window as though transfixed, then ran after the corporal, called to him in low, stealthy tone to come back noiselessly, drew him by the sleeve to the front of Hayne’s quarters, and pointed to the parlor window.  Two shadows were there now,—­one easily recognizable as that of the young officer in his snugly-fitting undress uniform, the other slender, graceful, feminine.

“What do you make that other shadow to be, corporal?” he whispered, hoarsely and hurriedly. “Look!” And with that exclamation a shadowed arm seemed to encircle the slender form, the moustached image to bend low and mingle with the outlined luxuriance of tress that decked the other’s head, and then, together, with clasping arms, the shadows moved from view.

“What was the other, corporal?” he repeated.

“Well, sir, I should say it was a young woman.”

Buxton could hardly wait until morning to see Rayner.  When he passed the latter’s quarters half an hour later, all was darkness; though, had he but known it, Rayner was not asleep.  He was at the house before guard-mounting, and had a confidential and evidently exciting talk with the captain; and when he went, just as the trumpets were sounding, these words were heard at the front door: 

“She never left until after daylight, when the same rig drove her back to town.  There was a stranger with her then.”

That morning both Rayner and Buxton looked hard at Mr. Hayne when he came in to the matinee; but he was just as calm and quiet as ever, and, having saluted the commanding officer, took a seat by Captain Gregg and was soon occupied in conversation with him.  Not a word was said by the officer of the day about the mysterious visitor to the garrison the previous night.  With Captain Rayner, however, he was again in conversation much of the day, and to him, not to his successor as officer of the day, did he communicate all the details of the previous night’s adventure and his theories thereanent.

Late that night, having occasion to step to his front door, convinced that he heard stealthy footsteps on his piazza, Mr. Hayne could see nobody in the darkness, but found his front gate open.  He walked around his little house; but not a man was visible.  His heart was full of a new and strange excitement that night, and, as before, he threw on his overcoat and furs and took a rapid walk around the garrison, gazing up into the starry heavens and drinking in great draughts of the pure, bracing air.  Returning, he came down along the front of officers’ row, and as