cusable outrage.

Captain Rayner, too, was in fearful plight. He had simply obeyed orders;
but all the old story of his persecution of Hayne would now be revived;
all men would see in his participation in the affair only additional
reason to adjudge him cruelly persistent in his hatred of the young
officer, and, in view of the utter ruthlessness and wrong of this
assault, would be more than ever confident of the falsity of his
position in the original case. As he was slowly led up-stairs to his
room and his tearful wife and silent sister-in-law bathed and cleansed
his wound, he saw with frightful clearness how the crush of
circumstances was now upon him and his good name. Great heaven! how
those words of Hayne's five years before rang, throbbed, burned, beat
like trip-hammers through his whirling brain! It seemed as though they
followed him and his fortunes like a curse. He sat silent, stunned,
awe-stricken at the force of the calamity that had befallen him. How
could he ever induce an officer and a gentleman to believe that he was
no instigator in this matter?--that it was all Buxton's doing, Buxton's
low imagination that had conceived the possibility of such a crime on
the part of Mr. Hayne, and Buxton's blundering, bull-headed abuse of
authority that had capped the fatal climax? It was some time before his
wife could get him to speak at all. She was hysterically bemoaning the
fate that had brought them into contact with such people, and from time
to time giving vent to the comforting assertion that never had there
been a cloud on their domestic or regimental sky until that wretch had
been assigned to the Riflers. She knew from the hurried and guarded
explanations of Dr. Grimes and one or two young officers who helped
Rayner home that the fracas had occurred at Mr. Hayne's,--that there had
been a mistake for which her husband was not responsible, but that
Captain Buxton was entirely to blame. But her husband's ashen face told
her a story of something far deeper: she knew that now he was involved
in fearful trouble, and, whatever may have been her innermost thoughts,
it was the first and irresistible impulse to throw all the blame upon
her scapegoat. Miss Travers, almost as pale and quite as silent as the
captain, was busying herself in helping her sister; but she could with
difficulty restrain her longing to bid her be silent. She, too, had
endeavored to learn from her escort on their hurried homeward rush
across the