The Deserter

swer. You and Kate are very much of a mind about the 'temptations' with which I am surrounded; but you are far more imaginative than s

ter? Ah, Steven, it is what may be said of me; but, if cold and heartless to you, I have certainly given no man at this garrison the faintest reason to think that he has inspired any greater interest in him. They are all kind, all very attentive. I have told you how well Mr. Royce dances and Mr. Merton rides and Mr. Foster read

is more attentive than another. There are five or six who come daily. There are some who do not come at all. A

again your sweet mother, whom I do love, and Kate, who had been a mother to me, both declared that that should make no difference: the love would come: the happiest marriages the world over were those in which the girl respected the man of her choice: love would come, and come speedily, when once she was his wife. You yourself declared you could wait in patience,-you would woo and win by and by. Only promise to be your wife before returning to the frontier, and you would be content. Steven, are you content? You know you are not: you know you are unhappy; and it is all, not because I am growing to love some one else, but because I am not growing to love you. Heaven knows I want to love you; for so long as you hold me to it my promise is sacred and shall be kept. More than that, if you say that it is your will that I seclude myself from

are for some one here. You would be the first one to know it; for I would tell you as soon as I knew it myself. Then what could I hope for,-or you? Surely you would not want to marry a girl who loved another man. But is it much better to marry one who feels that she does not love you? Think of it, Steven: I am very lonely, very far from happy, very wretched over Kate's evident trouble and all the sorrow I am bringing you and yours; but have I misled or deceived you in any one thing? Once

ns that in his own regiment the officers are beginning to believe that possibly he was not the guilty man. The cavalry officers, of course, say nothing to us on the subject, and I have never heard the full story. If he has been, as is suggested, the victim of a scoundrel, and Captain Rayner was at

irl. Already I am more than expecting you to write and release me

ly, at le

el

mber, of my meeting with Mr. Hayne. Of course I am anxious to

began. If anything, he seemed relieved by some passages, though rejoiced by none. Then he took from an inner pocket the letter that had reached him a few days previous, and all alone in h

, therefore, there could be no probable interruption; and she decided to write an answer to the letter which came from Mr. Van Antwerp the previous afternoon. A bright fire was burning in the old-fashioned stove with which frontier quarters are warmed if not ornamented, and she perched her little, slippered feet upon the hearth, took her portfolio

" called Miss Travers. "I w

g with her head just visible at the stairway, it being one of the unconquerable tenets of frontier domestics to go no farther than is absolutely necessa

name, ma'am. She's the

Mrs. Rayner started with surprising alacrity; but as she passe

door. Mrs. Curtis merely wanted to remind her that she must be sure to come and spend the afternoon with her and bring her music, and was dismayed to find that Miss Travers could not come before stable-call: she had an engagement. "Of course: I might have known it: you are besieged every hour. Well, can you come to-morrow? Do." And, to-morrow being settled upon, and despite the fact that several of the party waiting on the sidewalk looked cold a

, Mrs. Clancy. Now,

me the answer, hurried, hal

ma'am, an' he's worse than ever about Loot'nant Hayne

you must watch

r anxiety was personal. It was for her husband and for herself she feared, or woman's tone and tongue never yet revealed a secret. Nellie Travers stood in her room stunned and bewildered, yet trying hard to recall and put together all the scattered stories and rumors that had reached her about the strange conduct of Clancy after he was taken to the hospital,-especially about his heart-broken wail when told that it was Lieutenant Hayne who had rescued him and little Kate from hideous death. Somewhere, somehow, this man was connected with the mystery which encircled the long-hidden truth in Hayne's trouble. Could it be possible that he did not realize it, and that her sister had discovered it? Could it be-oh, heaven! no!-could it be that Kate was standing between that lonely and friendless man and the revelation that would set him right? She could not believe it of her! She would not believe it of her sister! And yet what did Kate mean by

Nellie's room and talked on various topics for some little time, watching narrowly her sister's

. Clancy's agitation and mysterious condu

hat you yourself do not wish to tell me. You un

u couldn't help hearing; but you must have th

ans

n't

hinking of

?" half defiantly, yet tr

at you should be talking

husband,-his drinking so mu

ch consternation at his connect

ried about Clancy. He is not himself; he is wild and imaginative when he's drinking. He has some strange fancies since the fire, and he thinks he ought to do something to help the officer because he helped him, and his head is full of Police Gazette stories, utterly without foundation, an

hy

d, and he would seize on any pretext to make it unpl

in any way affects them?" asked Nel

dream of a liquor-maddened brain. Mrs. Clancy and I both know that wha

old you a

e tells me

know she tel

deceive me? I have don

eory, no matter how crack-brained, or if he knows anything about the case and wants

o far! One would think you believed I wish to s

t Clancy's seeing Mr. Hayne and telling him everythin

Travers's door closed as usual, and his wife in voluble distress of mind. He could only learn that she and Nellie had had a fall