s and damsels were up on
the heights that day in such vehicles as the post afforded. None appeared
in anything so stylish and elegant as the carriage of the Prime party.
She was a new and comparative stranger there, and it would vastly enhance
her social _prestige_, she argued, to be seen in such "swell"
surroundings. With a little tact and management she might even arrange
matters so that, willy nilly, her friends would drive her home instead of
taking Colonel Armstrong back to camp. That would be a stroke worth
playing. She owed Stanley Armstrong a bitter grudge, and had nursed it
long. She had known him ten years and hated him nine of them. Where they
met and when it really matters not. In the army people meet and part in a
hundred places when they never expected to meet again. She had married
Frank Garrison in a hand gallop, said the garrison chronicles, "before
she had known him two months," said the men, "before he knew her at all,"
said the women. She was four years his senior, if the chaplain could be
believed and five months his junior if _she_ could. Whatever might have
been the discrepancy in their ages at the time of the ceremony no one
would suspect the truth who saw them now. It was he who looked aged and
careworn and harassed, and she who preserved her youthful bloom and
vivacity.

And now, as she reclined as though still too weak and shaken to leave the
carriage and return to saddle, her quick wits were planning the scheme
that should result in _her_ retaining, and his losing the coveted seat.
There was little time to lose. Most of the crowd had scattered, and she
well knew that he was only waiting for her to leave before he would
return. Almost at the instant her opportunity came. A covered wagon
reined suddenly alongside and kind and sympathetic voices hailed her: "Do
let us drive you home, Mrs. Garrison; you must have been terribly
shaken." She recognized at once the wife and daughter of a prominent
officer of the post.

"Oh, how kind you are!" she cried. "I was hoping some one would come.
Indeed, I _did_ get a little wrench." And then, as she moved, with a
sudden gasp of pain, she clasped Miss Lawrence's extended hand.

"Indeed, you must not stir, Mrs. Garrison," said that young lady. "We
will drive you home at once." Miss Prime and her father were adding their
pleas. She looked up, smiling faintly.

"I fear I must trouble you," she faltered. "Oh, how stupid of me! But
about Stanley Armstrong--I