When Judge Roscoe came in she submitted this question to his judgment. To her surprise he did not canvass the matter. He said at once: "By all means Captain Baynell ought to know this. It would be best to send for him and explain to him what you saw and heard,—the whole occurrence. Captain Baynell should be made aware of all the details of the actual event that you more nearly than any one else witnessed."
The house in these summer days, with the shutters half closed and the doors all open, seemed more retired, more solitary, than when all the busy life of the place was drawn to the focus of the library fire. She was quite alone, as she traversed the hall and sat down to write at the library table. The "ladies" were playing out of doors, close in to the window under a tree. Judge Roscoe had business in the town and walked thither leaning rather heavily on his cane, for no news came of Acrobat, and somehow he no longer cared to ride the glossy iron-gray that Captain Baynell still left grazing in his pastures. So still were all the precincts she feared she might not find a messenger as she went out on the latticed gallery searching for old Ephraim. But there he sat in the sun in front of the kitchen door. He was not wont to be so silent. He said naught when she handed him the missive with her instructions, but he looked unwilling, with a sort of warning wisdom in his expression, and several times turned the note gingerly in his hand, as if he thought it might explode. He would fain have remonstrated against the renewal of communication with the elements that had brought so much disquiet into the calm life of the old house hitherto. But his lips were sealed so far as the "Yankee man" and Julius were concerned. And he would maintain that he had never seen or heard of the grotto till indeed it was blown up.
"All dese young folks is a stiff-necked and tarrifyin' generation, an' ef dey will leave ole Ephraim in peace, he p'intedly won't pester dem," he said to himself.
Therefore, merely murmuring acquiescence, "Yes'm, yes'm, yes'm," while he received his orders, he put on his hat which he had hitherto held in his hand, and walked off briskly to the tent of the artillery captain.
The succinct dignified tone of Mrs. Gwynn's note requesting to see Captain Baynell at his earliest convenience on a matter of business precluded effectually any false sentimental hopes, had any communication from her been calculated to raise them. He was already mounted, having just returned from afternoon parade; and saying to Uncle Ephraim that he would wait on Mrs. Gwynn immediately, he wheeled his horse and forthwith disappeared in the midst of the shadow and sheen of the full-leaved grove.
Baynell had changed, changed immeasurably, since she had last seen him. Always quiet and sedate, his gravity had intensified to sternness, his dignified composure to a cold, impenetrable reserve, his attentive interest to a sort of wary vigilance, all giving token of the effect wrought in his mental and moral endowment by the knowledge of the suspicions entertained concerning his actions, and the charges that were being formulated against him.
In one sense these had already slain him. His individuality was gone. He would be no more what once he was. His pride, so strong, so vivid, as essential an element of his being as his breath, as his soul, had been done to death. It had been a noble endowment, despite its exactions, and maintained high standards and sought finer issues. It had died with the woe of a thousand deaths, that calumny should touch his name; that accusation could ever find a foothold in his life; that treachery should come to investigation in his deeds.
She rather wondered at his calmness, the self-possession expressed in his manner, his face. He had himself well in hand. He was not nervous. His haggard pallor told what the sleepless hours of self-communing brought to him, yet he was strong enough to confront the future. He would give battle to the false charge, the lying circumstance, the implacable phalanxes of the probabilities. The truth was intrinsically worth fighting for, in any event, and even now his heart could swell with the conviction that the truth could only demonstrate the impeccancy of his official record.
He met her with that grave, conventional, inexpressive courtesy which had always characterized him, and it was a little difficult, in her unusual flutter and agitation, to find a suitable beginning.
She had seated herself in the library at the table where she had written the note, and she was mechanically trifling with an ivory paper-knife, the portfolio and paper still lying before her. He took a chair near at hand and waited, not seeking to inaugurate the conversation.