he services, and much that it did
not,--she was unrelenting in her condemnation of Mr. Hayne. To those who
pointed out that he had made every atonement man could make, she
responded with the severity of conscious virtue that there could be no
atonement without repentance, and no repentance without humility. Mr.
Hayne's whole attitude was that of stubborn pride and resentment; his
atonement was that enforced by the unanimous verdict of his comrades;
and even if it were so that he had more than made amends for his crime,
the rules that held good for ordinary sinners were not applicable to an
officer of the army. _He_ must be a man above suspicion, incapable of
wrong or fraud, and once stained he was forever ineligible as a
gentleman. It was a subject on which she waxed declamatory rather too
often, and the youngsters of her own regiment wearied of it. As Mr.
Foster once expressed it in speaking of this very case, "Mrs. Rayner can
talk more charity and show less than any woman I know." So long as her
talk was aimed against any lurking tendency of their own to look upon
Hayne as a possible martyr, it fell at times on unappreciative ears, and
she was quick to see it and to choose her hearers; but here was a new
phase,--one that might rouse the latent _esprit de corps_ of the
Riflers,--and she was bent on striking while the iron was hot. If
anything would provoke unanimity of action and sentiment in the
regiment, this public recognition by the cavalry, in their very
presence, of the man they cut as a criminal, was the thing of all others
to do it; and she meant to head the revolt.

Possibly Gregg and his modest helpmeet discovered that there was
something she desired to "spring" upon the meeting. The others present
were all of the infantry; and when Captain Rayner simply glanced in,
spoke hurried good-evenings, and went as hurriedly out again, Gregg was
sure of it, and marched his wife away. Then came Mrs. Rayner's
opportunity:

"If it were not Captain Rayner's house, I could not have been even civil
to Captain Gregg. You heard what he said at the club this morning, I
suppose?"

In one form or another, indeed, almost everybody _had_ heard. The
officers present maintained an embarrassed silence. Miss Travers looked
reproachfully at her flushed sister, but to no purpose. At last one of
the ladies remarked,--

"Well, of course I heard of it, but--I've heard so many different
versions. It seems to have grown somewhat since m