The reply was unexpectedly spirited.  He had thought to encourage and sustain her, be sympathetic and paternal, but, as he afterwards ruefully admitted, he “never did seem to get the hang of a woman’s temperament.”  Apparently sympathy was not the thing she needed.

“It is late in the day to ask such a question, Captain Chester.  You have done great wrong and injustice.  The question is now, will you undo it?”

He was too surprised to speak for a moment.  When his tongue was unloosed he said,—­

“I shall be glad to be convinced I was wrong.”

“I know little of army justice or army laws, Captain Chester, but when a girl is compelled to take this step to rescue a friend there is something brutal about them,—­or the men who enforce them.  Mr. Jerrold tells me that he is arrested.  I knew that last night, but not until this morning did he consent to let me know that he would be court-martialled unless he could prove where he was the night you were officer of the day two weeks ago, and last Saturday night.  He is too noble and good to defend himself when by doing so he might harm me.  But I am here to free him from the cruel suspicion you have formed.”  She had quickened her step, and in her impulsiveness and agitation they were almost at the end of the walk.  He hesitated, as though reluctant to go along under the piazza, but she was imperious, and he yielded.  “No, come!” she said.  “I mean that you shall hear the whole truth, and that at once.  I do not expect you to understand or condone my conduct, but you must acquit him.  We are engaged; and—­I love him.  He has enemies here, as I see all too plainly, and they have prejudiced mother against him, and she has forbidden my seeing him.  I came out to the fort without her knowledge one day, and it angered her.  From that time she would not let me see him alone.  She watched every movement, and came with me wherever I drove.  She gave orders that I should never have any of our horses to drive or ride alone,—­I, whom father had indulged to the utmost and who had ridden and driven at will from my babyhood.  She came out to the fort with me that evening for parade, and never even agreed to let me go out to see some neighbors until she learned he was to escort Miss Renwick.  She had ordered me to be ready to go with her to Chequamagon the next day, and I would not go until I had seen him.  There had been a misunderstanding.  I got the Suttons to drive me out while mother supposed me at the Laurents’, and Mr. Jerrold promised to meet me east of the bridge and drive in town with us, and I was to send him back in Graves’s buggy.  He had been refused permission to leave the post, he said, and could not cross the bridge, where the sentries would be sure to recognize him, but, as it was our last chance of meeting, he risked the discovery of his absence, never dreaming of such a thing as his private rooms being inspected.  He had a little skiff down in the willows that he had used before,