istractedly. "Here's a
matter I want to see you about. It's--well, just take that letter and
read. Sit down, sit down. Read, and tell me what we ought to do about
it."

And as Cram's blue eyes wandered over the written page they began to
dilate. He read from start to finish, and then dropped his head into his
hand, his elbow on his knee, his face full of perplexity and concern.

"What do you think of it? Is there any truth----" and the colonel
hesitated.

"As to their being seen together, perhaps. As to the other,--the
challenge,--I don't believe it."

"Well, Cram, this is the second or third letter that has come to me in
the same hand. Now, you must see to it that he returns and doesn't quit
the post until this matter is arranged."

"I'll attend to it, sir," was the answer.

And so that evening, while Waring was slowly driving his friends about
the shaded roads under the glistening white pillars of the rows of
officers' quarters, chatting joyously with them and describing the
objects so strange to their eyes, Mrs. Cram's "little foot-page" came to
beg that they should alight a few minutes and take a cup of tea. They
could not. The Allertons were engaged, and it was necessary to drive
back at once to town, but they stopped for a moment to chat with their
pretty hostess under the gallery, and then a moment later, as they
rolled out of the resounding sally-port, an orderly ran up, saluted, and
slipped a note in Waring's hand.

"It is immediate, sir," was his explanation.

"Ah! Miss Allerton, will you pardon me one moment?" said Waring, as he
shifted whip and reins into the left hand and turned coolly up the levee
road. Then with the right he forced open and held up the missive.

It only said, "Whatsoever you do, be here before taps to-night. Come
direct to me, and I will explain.
"Your friend,
"CRAM."

"All right," said Waring, aloud. "My compliments to the captain, and
say I'll be with him."

But even with this injunction he failed to appear. Midnight came without
a word from Waring, and the morning dawned and found him absent still.

CHAPTER III.

It was one of Sam Waring's oddities that, like the hero of "Happy
Thoughts," other people's belongings seemed to suit him so much better
than his own. The most immaculately dressed man in the regiment, he was
never satisfied with the result of the efforts of the New York ar