“Rollins, some day I may tell you a story that I’ve kept to myself all these years.  You won’t wonder at my feeling as I do about these goings-on of your friend Jerrold when you hear it all, but it was just such a man as he who ruined one woman, broke the heart of another, and took the sunshine out of the life of two men from that day to this.  One of them was your colonel, the other your captain.  Now go to bed.  I’m going out.”  And, throwing down his pipe, regardless of the scattering sparks and ashes, Captain Chester strode into the hall-way, picked up the first forage-cap he laid hands on, and banged himself out of the front door.

Mr. Rollins remained for some moments in the same attitude, still gazing abstractedly at the rug, and listening to the nervous tramp of his senior officer on the piazza without.  Then he slowly and thoughtfully went to his room, where his perturbed spirit was soon soothed in sleep.  His conscience being clear and his health perfect, there were no deep cares to keep him tossing on a restless pillow.

To Chester, however, sleep was impossible:  he tramped the piazza a full hour before he felt placid enough to go and inspect his guard.  The sentries were calling three o’clock, and the wind had died away, as he started on his round.  Dark as was the night, he carried no lantern.  The main garrison was well lighted by lamps, and the road circling the old fort was broad, smooth, and bordered by a stone coping wall where it skirted the precipitous descent into the river-bottom.  As he passed down the plank walk west of the quadrangle wherein lay the old barracks and the stone quarters of the commanding officer and the low one-storied row of bachelor dens, he could not help noting the silence and peace of the night.  Not a light was visible at any window as he strode down the line.  The challenge of the sentry at the old stone tower sounded unnecessarily sharp and loud, and his response of “Officer of the day” was lower than usual, as though rebuking the unseemly outcry.  The guard came scrambling out and formed hurriedly to receive him, but the captain’s inspection was of the briefest kind.  Barely glancing along the prison corridor to see that the bars were in place, he turned back into the night, and made for the line of posts along the river-bank.  The sentry at the high bridge across the gorge, and the next one, well around to the southeast flank, were successively visited and briefly questioned as to their instructions, and then the captain plodded sturdily on until he came to the sharp bend around the outermost angle of the fort and found himself passing behind the quarters of the commanding officer, a substantial two-storied stone house with mansard roof and dormer-windows.  The road in the rear was some ten feet below the level of the parade inside the quadrangle, and consequently, as the house faced the parade, what was the ground-floor from that front became the second story at the rear.