houldn't I go to the hospital with you? Why do
you try to hide your going from me? Don't you know that I must have
heard the strange stories that are flitting about the garrison? Haven't
I asked you to set me right if I have been told a wrong one? Kate, you
are fretting yourself to death about something, and the captain looks
worried and ill. I cannot but think it has some connection with the case
of Mr. Hayne. Why should the Clancys--"

"You have no right to think any such thing," answered her sister,
angrily. "We have suffered too much at his hands or on his account
already, and I never want to hear such words from your lips. It would
outrage Captain Rayner to hear that my sister, to whom he has given a
home and a welcome, was linking herself with those who side with
that--that thief."

"Kate! Oh, how _can_ you use such words? How dare you speak so of an
officer? You would not tell me what he was accused of; but I tell you
that if it be theft I don't believe it,--and no one else--"

There was a sudden footfall on the porch without, and a quick, sharp,
imperative knock at the door. Mrs. Rayner fled back along the hall
towards the dining-room. Miss Travers, hesitating but a second, opened
the door.

It was the soldier telegraph-operator, with a despatch-envelope in his
hand:

"It is for Mrs. Rayner, miss, and an answer is expected. Shall I wait?"

Mrs. Rayner came hastily forward from her place of refuge within the
dining-room, took the envelope without a word, and passed into the
parlor, where, standing beneath the lamp, she tore it open, glanced
anxiously at its contents, then threw it with an exclamation of peevish
indignation upon the table:

"You'll have to answer for yourself, Nellie. I cannot straighten your
affairs and mine too." And with that she was going; but Miss Travers
called her back.

The message simply read, "No letter in four days. Is anything wrong?
Answer paid," and was addressed to Mrs. Rayner and signed S.V.A.

"I think you have been extremely neglectful," said Mrs. Rayner, who had
turned and now stood watching the rising color and impatiently tapping
foot of her younger sister. Miss Travers bit her lips and compressed
them hard. There was an evident struggle in her mind between a desire to
make an impulsive and sweeping reply and an effort to control herself.

"Will you answer a quiet question or two?" she finally asked.

"You know perfectly well I will," was the sisterly rejoinder.