“Colonel Armstrong, will you kindly open the carriage door? I want to talk with you a moment.”
Without a word he wrenched the handle and threw wide the door. Light as a bird she sprang to the ground, her fingers just touching the extended hand. Side by side they strolled away across the sunlit lawn, he so strong, virile, erect, she so lissome and graceful. Full of her purpose, yet fearful that with delay might come timidity, she looked up in his face:
“Colonel Armstrong, I have heard only to-day that Mr. Gray is in really serious danger. Will you tell me—the truth?”
Just what Armstrong expected it might be hard to say. The light that had leaped to his eyes faded slowly and his face lost something of the flush of robust health. There was a brief pause before he spoke as though he wished time to weigh his words.
“I fear it is true,” he gravely said. Then in a moment: “Miss Lawrence, will you not take my arm?” And he felt her hand tremble as she placed it there. It was a moment before she began again.
“They tell me he should have counsel, but will not heed. I have not seen him to-day. There is no one in his battalion, it seems, whom he really looks up to. He is headstrong and self-confident. Do you think he should—that he needs one?” And anxiously the brave eyes sought the strong, soldierly face.
“It would seem so, Miss Lawrence.”
She drew a long breath. She seemed to cling a little closer to his arm. Then—straight came the next question:
“Colonel Armstrong, will you do me a great favor? Will you be his counsel?”
He was looking directly to the front as she spoke. Something told him what was coming, yet he could not answer all at once. What did it mean, after all, but just what he had been thinking for a week, that the girl’s fresh young heart had gone out to this merry, handsome, soldierly lad, whom he, too, had often marked with keen appreciation when in command of his big company at drill. What possible thought of hers could he, “more than twice her years,” have ever hoped to win. She had come to him in her sore trouble—and her lover’s—as she would have gone to her father had he been a soldier schooled in such affairs. Armstrong pulled himself together with quick, stern self-command.