“Since when has it been the duty of the officer of the day to come around and hunt up officers who don’t happen to be out at reveille?” he asked.

“It is not your absence from reveille I want explained, Mr. Jerrold,” was the cold and deliberate answer.  “I wanted you at 3.30 this morning, and you were not and had not been here.”

An unmistakable start and shock; a quick, nervous, hunted glance around the room, so cold and pallid in the early light of the August morning; a clutch of Jerrold’s slim brown hand at the bared throat.  But he rallied gamely, strode a step forward, and looked his superior full in the face.  Sloat marked the effort with which he cleared away the huskiness that seemed to clog his larynx, but admired the spunk with which the young officer returned the senior’s shot: 

“What is your authority here, I would like to know?  What business has the officer of the day to want me or any other man not on guard?  Captain Chester, you seem to forget that I am no longer your second lieutenant, and that I am a company commander like yourself.  Do you come by Colonel Maynard’s order to search my quarters and question me?  If so, say so at once; if not, get out.”  And Jerrold’s face was growing black with wrath, and his big lustrous eyes were wide awake now and fairly snapping.

Chester leaned upon the table and deliberated a moment.  He stood there coldly, distrustfully eying the excited lieutenant, then turned to Sloat: 

“I will be responsible for the roll-call of Company B this morning, Sloat.  I have a matter of grave importance to bring up to this—­this gentleman, and it is of a private nature.  Will you let me see him alone?”

“Sloat,” said Jerrold, “don’t go yet.  I want you to stay.  These are my quarters, and I recognize your right to come here in search of me, since I was not at reveille; but I want a witness here to bear me out.  I’m too amazed yet—­too confounded by this intrusion of Captain Chester’s to grasp the situation.  I never heard of such a thing as this.  Explain it, if you can.”

“Mr. Jerrold, what I have to ask or say to you concerns you alone.  It is not an official matter.  It is as man to man I want to see you, alone and at once. Now will you let Major Sloat retire?”

Silence for a moment.  The angry flush on Jerrold’s face was dying away, and in its place an ashen pallor was spreading from throat to brow; his lips were twitching ominously.  Sloat looked in consternation at the sudden change.

“Shall I go?” he finally asked.

Jerrold looked long, fixedly, searchingly in the set face of the officer of the day, breathing hard and heavily.  What he saw there Sloat could not imagine.  At last his hand dropped by his side; he made a little motion with it, a slight wave towards the door, and again dropped it nervously.  His lips seemed to frame the word “Go,” but he never glanced at the man whom a moment before he so masterfully bade to stay; and Sloat, sorely puzzled, left the room.