For a moment there was silence in the group.  Few men in the service were better loved and honored than the veteran soldier who commanded the ——­th Infantry; and it was with genuine concern that his officers saw him so deeply and painfully affected,—­for affected he certainly was.  Never before had his cheery voice denied them a cordial “Good-morning, gentlemen.”  Never before had his blue eyes flinched.  He had been their comrade and commander in years of frontier service, and his bachelor home had been the rendezvous of all genial spirits when in garrison.  They had missed him sorely when he went abroad on long leave the previous year, and were almost indignant when they received the news that he had met his fate in Italy and would return married.  “She” was the widow of a wealthy New-Yorker who had been dead some three years only, and, though over forty, did not look her years to masculine eyes when she reached the fort in May.  After knowing her a week, the garrison had decided to a man that the colonel had done wisely.  Mrs. Maynard was charming, courteous, handsome, and accomplished.  Only among the women were there still a few who resented their colonel’s capture; and some of these, oblivious of the fact that they had tempted him with relations of their own, were sententious and severe in their condemnation of second marriage; for the colonel, too, was indulging in a second experiment.  Of his first, only one man in the regiment, besides the commander, could tell anything; and he, to the just indignation of almost everybody, would not discuss the subject.  It was rumored that in the old days when Maynard was senior captain and Chester junior subaltern in their former regiment the two had very little in common.  It was known that the first Mrs. Maynard, while still young and beautiful, had died abroad.  It was hinted that the resignation of a dashing lieutenant of the regiment, which was synchronous with her departure for foreign shores, was demanded by his brother officers; but it was useless asking Captain Chester.  He could not tell; and—­wasn’t it odd?—­here was Chester again, the only man in the colonel’s confidence in an hour of evident trouble.

“By Jove! what’s gone wrong with the chief?” was the first exclamation from one of the older officers.  “I never saw him look so broken.”

As no explanation suggested itself, they began edging in towards the office.  The door stood open; a hand-bell banged; a clerk darted in from the sergeant-major’s rooms, and Captain Chester was revealed seated at the colonel’s desk.  This in itself was sufficient to induce several officers to stroll in and look inquiringly around.  Captain Chester, merely nodding, went on with some writing at which he was engaged.

After a moment’s awkward silence and uneasy glancing at one another, the party seemed to arrive at the conclusion that it was time to speak.  The band had ceased, and the new guard had marched away behind its pealing bugles.  Lieutenant Hall winked at his comrades, strolled hesitatingly over to the desk, balanced unsteadily on one leg, and, with his hands sticking in his trousers-pockets and his forage-cap swinging from protruding thumb and forefinger, cleared his throat, and, with marked lack of confidence, accosted his absorbed superior: