veral hours; otherwise the carriage would not have driven away. In
confirmation of this theory, he heard voices, cheery voices, in laughing
talk, and one of them made him prick up his ears. He heard the piano
crisply trilling a response to light, skilful fingers. He longed for a
peep within, and regretted that he had dropped Mr. Hayne from the list
of his acquaintance. He recognized Hayne's shadow, presently, thrown by
the lamp upon the curtained window, and wished that his visitor would
come similarly into view. He heard the clink of glasses, and saw the
shadow raise a wineglass to the lips, and Sam's Mongolian shape flitted
across the screen, bearing a tray with similar suggestive objects. What
meant this unheard-of conviviality on the part of the ascetic, the
hermit, the midnight-oil-burner, the scholarly recluse of the garrison?
Buxton stared with all his eyes and listened with all his ears, starting
guiltily when he heard a martial footstep coming quickly up the path,
and faced the intruder rather unsteadily. It was only the corporal of
the guard, and he glanced at his superior, brought his fur-gauntleted
hand in salute to the rifle on his shoulder, and passed on. The next
moment Buxton fairly gasped with amaze: he stared an instant at the
window as though transfixed, then ran after the corporal, called to him
in low, stealthy tone to come back noiselessly, drew him by the sleeve
to the front of Hayne's quarters, and pointed to the parlor window. Two
shadows were there now,--one easily recognizable as that of the young
officer in his snugly-fitting undress uniform, the other slender,
graceful, feminine.

"What do you make that other shadow to be, corporal?" he whispered,
hoarsely and hurriedly. "_Look!_" And with that exclamation a shadowed
arm seemed to encircle the slender form, the moustached image to bend
low and mingle with the outlined luxuriance of tress that decked the
other's head, and then, together, with clasping arms, the shadows moved
from view.

"What was the other, corporal?" he repeated.

"Well, sir, I should say it was a young woman."

Buxton could hardly wait until morning to see Rayner. When he passed the
latter's quarters half an hour later, all was darkness; though, had he
but known it, Rayner was not asleep. He was at the house before
guard-mounting, and had a confidential and evidently exciting talk with
the captain; and when he went, just as the trumpets were sounding, these
words were h