ter of grave importance to bring up to this--this
gentleman, and it is of a private nature. Will you let me see him
alone?"

"Sloat," said Jerrold, "don't go yet. I want you to stay. These are my
quarters, and I recognize your right to come here in search of me, since
I was not at reveille; but I want a witness here to bear me out. I'm too
amazed yet--too confounded by this intrusion of Captain Chester's to
grasp the situation. I never heard of such a thing as this. Explain it,
if you can."

"Mr. Jerrold, what I have to ask or say to you concerns you alone. It is
_not_ an official matter. It is as man to man I want to see you, alone
and at once. _Now_ will you let Major Sloat retire?"

Silence for a moment. The angry flush on Jerrold's face was dying away,
and in its place an ashen pallor was spreading from throat to brow; his
lips were twitching ominously. Sloat looked in consternation at the
sudden change.

"Shall I go?" he finally asked.

Jerrold looked long, fixedly, searchingly in the set face of the officer
of the day, breathing hard and heavily. What he saw there Sloat could
not imagine. At last his hand dropped by his side; he made a little
motion with it, a slight wave towards the door, and again dropped it
nervously. His lips seemed to frame the word "Go," but he never glanced
at the man whom a moment before he so masterfully bade to stay; and
Sloat, sorely puzzled, left the room.

Not until his footsteps had died out of hearing did Chester speak:

"How soon can you leave the post?"

"I don't understand you."

"How soon can you pack up what you need to take and--get away?"

"Get away where? What on earth do you mean?"

"You _must_ know what I mean! You _must_ know that after last night's
work you quit the service at once and forever."

"I don't know anything of the kind; and I defy you to prove the faintest
thing." But Jerrold's fingers were twitching, and his eyes had lost
their light.

"Do you suppose I did not recognize you?" asked Chester.

"When?--where?" gulped Jerrold.

"When I seized you and you struck me!"

"I never struck you. I don't know what you mean."

"My God, man, let us end this useless fencing. The evidence I have of
your last night's scoundrelism would break the strongest record. For the
regiment's sake,--for the colonel's sake,--let us have no public
scandal. It's awful enough as the thing stands. Write your resignation,
give it to me, and leave,--before breakfast if y