"Of course I did. You never saw a man so contemptuously, insultingly cool in your life. He just——"
But Strain held up his hand. "I should like to know just what you said. The General has told me the message you were to give. Now-w, how did you give it?"
But that was something Colonel Strain was destined not to know for many a year, if indeed, he ever heard. There came a knock at the door. A servant entered with a card. "The lady, sir, begs to see the General at once, if only for five minutes."
The General frowned as he took the card. What lady would be calling at ten o'clock at night and demanding interviews when he was so much occupied. But his face changed as he read, then glanced up at his chief-of-staff.
"This is remarkable, Strain. The lady superior of the gray sister's convent. Alone?" he asked, turning to the servant.
"No, sir. Young lady with her, sir."
"You'll have to excuse me a moment, gentlemen," said he. "I'll rejoin you here."
Strain was about to return to the subject when the butler spoke. "A messenger from headquarters is at the door, sir. Says he has a dispatch to deliver in person. Shall I send him up?"
It was the General's library, and Strain was wondering what was going on in the General's parlor. He knew of the lady superior. He knew the story of little Pancha, her brave, uncomplaining conduct the night of the wreck, and of her being placed in the convent of the gray sisters. He decided to go to the hall door himself, and was astonished to hear the sound of sobbing as he passed the parlor. Mechanically he took and receipted for the dispatch. Slowly, absently he retraced his steps, listening to the strange sounds, a pleading, choking, girlish voice, soothing words in the gentle, loving woman's sweet tones, the occasional gruff monosyllables from the General himself. Strain reached the library again in something like a dream, finding Petty stalking up and down, tugging at his slim mustache, and nervously expectant of further question, but none came. They were startled by the quick, hurried footsteps of the General, as he waddled back to join them, and burst in, red-faced, ruffled, apoplectic.
"Strain—Petty, this thing has got to be settled somehow at once! That young woman—Ugh! damn the gout! Here, Strain—Don't you go, Petty; you won't do—Hold on! Yes, you'll have to, by Jove! There's no time to be lost. Go and say to Mr. Loring, with my compliments, I desire to see him a moment in the morning before he sails, and-d—He's—he's released from arrest—It's all—it's all—well, not all of it, but—damnation! I can't explain now. Go Petty—go! Tell him he's released—relieved, and Strain, you issue the order relieving him at once, and directing him to proceed without delay to his new station. I want to get the order out before those damned fellows at Washington can order it themselves. What's that you've got?"