Looking around the half-darkened room, Armitage lingered long over the photographs which hung about the dressing-table and over the mantel,—­several prettily-framed duplicates of those already described as appearing in the album.  One after another he took them in his hands, bore them to the window, and studied them attentively:  some were not replaced without a long, lingering kiss.  He had not ventured to disturb an item in her room.  He would not touch the knob of a drawer or attempt to open anything she had closed, but here in quarters where his colonel could claim joint partnership he felt less sentiment or delicacy.  He closed the hall door and tried the lock, turning the knob to and fro.  Then he reopened the door and swung it upon its hinges.  For a wonder, neither lock nor hinges creaked.  The door worked smoothly and with little noise.  Then he similarly tried the door of her room.  It was in equally good working order,—­quite free from the squeak and complaint with which quartermasters’ locks and hinges are apt to do their reluctant duty.  The discovery pleased him.  It was possible for one to open and close these portals noiselessly, if need be, and without disturbing sleepers in either room.  Returning to the east chamber, he opened the shades, so as to get more light, and his eye fell upon an old album lying on a little table that stood by the bedside.  There was a night-lamp upon the table, too,—­a little affair that could hold only a thimbleful of oil and was intended, evidently, to keep merely a faint glow during the night hours.  Other volumes—­a Bible, some devotional books, like “The Changed Cross,” and a Hymnal or two—­were also there; but the album stood most prominent, and Armitage curiously took it up and opened it.

There were only half a dozen photographs in the affair.  It was rather a case than an album, and was intended apparently for only a few family pictures.  There was but one that interested him, and this he examined intently, almost excitedly.  It represented a little girl of nine or ten years,—­Alice, undoubtedly,—­with her arms clasped about the neck of a magnificent St. Bernard dog and looking up into the handsome features of a tall, slender, dark-eyed, black-haired boy of sixteen or thereabouts; and the two were enough alike to be brother and sister.  Who, then, was this boy?

Armitage took the photograph to the window and studied it carefully.  Parade was over, and the troops were marching back to their quarters.  The band was playing gloriously as it came tramping into the quadrangle, and the captain could not but glance out at his own old company as in compact column of fours it entered the grassy diamond and swung off towards the barracks.  He saw a knot of officers, too, turning the corner by the adjutant’s office, and for a moment he lowered the album to look.  Mr. Jerrold was not of the number that came sauntering up the walk, dropping away by ones or twos as they reached their doors and unbuckled their belts or removed