"If—if it had been a correspondence where there was a woman in the case," begins the colonel again—and the doctor starts as though stung, and his wrinkled hands wring each other under the heavy travelling-shawl he wears—"I could understand the thing better. Quite a number of romantic correspondences have grown up between our soldiers and young girls at home through the medium of these mittens and things; they seem to have lost their old significance. But you give me to understand that—that there was none?"
"The letters were solely about my son, all that ever came to me," said the doctor, nervously.
"That seems to complicate the matter. If it were a mere flirtation by letter, such as is occasionally going on, then somebody might have borrowed his name and stolen his photograph; but I don't see how he could have secured the replies—the girl's letters—in such a case. No. As you say, doctor, that wasn't apt to be the solution, though I'm at a loss to account for the letters that came from you. They were addressed to Lieutenant Abbot, camp of the—th Massachusetts, you tell me, and Abbot declares he has never heard from any one of your name, or had a letter from Hastings. He would be the last man, too, to get into a correspondence with a woman—for he is engaged."
The doctor starts again as though stung a second time. Was there not in one of those letters a paragraph over which his sweet daughter had blushed painfully as she strove to read it aloud? Did it not speak of an entanglement that once existed; an affair in which his heart had never been enlisted, but where family considerations and parental wishes had conspired to bring about a temporary "understanding"? The cabriolet is bouncing about on the cobblestones of the old-fashioned street, and the doctor is thankful for the physical jar. Another moment and they draw up at the door of the old Maryland hostelry, and the colonel steps out and assists his companion to alight.
"Let me take you to your room now, doctor; then I'll have our staff surgeon come over and see you. It has been a shock which would break a younger man—"
But the old gentleman has nerved himself for the struggle. First and foremost—no one must follow him to his room—none suspect the trial there awaiting him. He turns sadly, but with decision.
"Colonel, I cannot thank you now as you deserve; once home, I will write, but now what I need is absolute rest a little while. I am stunned, bewildered. I must think this out, and my best plan is to get to sleep first. Forgive me, sir, for my apparent discourtesy, and do not take it amiss if I say that for a few moments—for the present—I should like to be alone. We—we will meet again, sir, if it rest with me, and I will write. Good-night, colonel. Good-night, sir."
And he turns hurriedly away. For a moment the soldier stands uncertain what to do. Then he enters the hallway determined to bespeak the best offices of the host in behalf of his stricken friend. There is a broad stairway some distance back in the hall, and up this he sees the doctor slowly laboring. He longs to go to his assistance, but stands irresolute, fearing to offend. The old gentleman nears the top, and is almost on the landing above, when a door is suddenly opened, a light, quick step is heard, and in an instant a tall, graceful girl, clad in deep black—a girl whom the colonel sees is young, beautiful, and very pale—springs forward into view, places her hands on the old man's shoulders, and looks eagerly, imploringly, into his face. What she asks, what she says, the colonel cannot hear; but another moment solves all doubt as to his proper course. He sees her clasped to the doctor's breast; he sees them clinging to each other one instant, and then the father, with sudden rally, bears her pale and probably fainting from his sight. A door shuts with muffled slam, and they are gone; and with the intuition of a gentleman Colonel Putnam realizes why his proffer of services would now be out of place.
"And so there is a woman in the case, after all," he thinks to himself as he steps forth into the cool evening air. "And it is for her sake the good old man shrinks from dragging the matter into the light of day—his daughter, probably; and some scoundrel has been at work, and in my regiment."
The colonel grinds his teeth and clinches his fists at this reflection. He is a husband and father himself, and now he understands some features in the old doctor's trouble which had puzzled him before. He strolls across the street to the sidewalk under the quaint old red-brick, dormer-windowed houses where lights are still gleaming, and where groups of people are chatting and laughing in the pleasant air. Many of them are in the rough uniform of the army—teamsters, drivers, and slightly wounded soldiers out on pass from the neighboring field hospitals. The old cabriolet is being trundled off to some neighboring stable after a brief confabulation between the driver thereof and the landlord of the tavern, and the colonel is about hailing and tendering the Jehu another job for the morrow, when he sees that somebody else is before him; and, bending down from his seat, the driver is talking with a man who has come out from the shadow of a side porch. There is but little light in the street, and the colonel has turned on reaching the curb, and is seeking among the windows across the way for one which may possibly prove to be the young lady's. He is interested in the case more than ever now, but the windows give no sign. Some are lighted, and occasional shadows flit across them, but none that are familiar. Suddenly he hears a sound that brings him back to himself—the tramp of marching feet, and the sudden clash of arms as they halt; a patrol from the provost-marshal's guard comes quickly around a corner from the soft dust of a side street, and the non-commissioned officers are sharply halting all neighboring men in uniform, and examining their passes. Several parties in army overcoats shuffle uneasily up the street, only to fall into the clutches of a companion patrol that pops up as suddenly around the next corner beyond. "Rounding up the stragglers," thinks the colonel, with a quiet smile of approval, and, like the soldier he is, he finds time to look on a moment and watch the manner in which the work is done. The patrol seems to have possessed itself of both sides of the street at the same instant, and "spotted" every man in blue. These are bidden to stand until their papers are examined by the brace of young officers who appear upon the scene, belted and sashed, and bearing small lanterns. Nor are uniforms alone subject to scrutiny. Ever since Second Bull-Run there has been much straggling in the army, and not a little desertion; and though a fortnight has passed since Antietam was fought, the provost-marshal's men have not yet finished scouring the country, and a sharp lookout is kept for deserters. Those civilians who can readily establish their identity as old residents of the town have no trouble. Occasionally a man is encountered whom nobody seems to know, and, despite their protestations, two of those characters have been gathered in by the patrol, and are now on their way to the office. The colonel hears their mingled complaint and blasphemy as they are marched past him by a file of the guard, and then turns to the nearest of the officers—