with all comers, when
Ananias entered and informed him there was a lady below who wished to
see him,--"lady" being the euphemism of the lately enfranchised for the
females of their race. It was 'Louette with the mandate from her
mistress, a mandate he dared not disregard.

"Say I'll be along in a minute," was his reply, but he sighed and swore
heavily, as he slowly reascended the stair. "Give me another dhrink,
smut," he ordered Ananias, disregarding Ferry's suggestion, "Better
drink no more till after dark." Then, swallowing his potion, he went
lurching down the steps without another word. Ferry and Pierce stepped
to the gallery and gazed silently after him as he veered around to the
gate leading to the old war-hospital enclosure where the battery was
quartered. Already his walk was perceptibly unsteady.

"Keeps his head pretty well, even after his legs are gone," said Ferry.
"Knows too much to go by the sally-port. He's sneaking out through the
back gate."

"Why, what does he go out there for, when he has the run of Waring's
sideboard?"

"Oh, didn't you hear? Mrs. Doyle sent for him."

"That's it, is it? Sometimes I wonder which one of those two will kill
the other."

"Oh, he wouldn't dare. That fellow is an abject coward in the dark. He
believes in ghosts, spooks, banshees, and wraiths,--everything
uncanny,--and she'd haunt him if he laid his hands on her. There's only
one thing that he'd be more afraid of than Bridget Doyle living, and
that would be Bridget Doyle dead."

"Why can't he get rid of her? What hold has she on him? This thing's an
infernal scandal as it stands. She's only been here a month or so, and
everybody in garrison knows all about her, and these doughboys don't
make any bones about chaffing us on our lady friends."

"Well, everybody supposed he had got rid of her years ago. He shook her
when he was made first sergeant, just before the war. Why, I've heard
some of the old stagers say there wasn't a finer-looking soldier in all
the regiment than Jim Doyle when he married that specimen at
Brownsville. Doyle, too, supposed she was dead until after he got his
commission, then she reappeared and laid claim to him. It would have
been an easy enough matter five years ago to prove she had forfeited all
rights, but now he can't. Then she's got some confounded hold on him, I
don't know what, but it's killing the poor beggar. Good thing for the
regiment, though: so let it go."

"Oh, I don't care a