Mrs. Rayner turned about once more, and, without saying so much as good-night, went heavily up-stairs, leaving her escort to share with Mr. Royce such welcome as the captain was ready to accord them. If forbidden to talk on the subject nearest her heart, she would not speak at all. She would have banged her door, but that would have waked baby. It stung her to the quick to know that the cavalry officers were daily visitors at Mr. Hayne's quarters. It was little comfort to know that the infantry officers did not go, for she and they both knew that, except Major Waldron, no one of their number was welcome under that roof unless he would voluntarily come forward and say, "I believe you innocent." She felt that but for the stand made by Hayne himself most of their number would have received him into comradeship again by this time, and she could hardly sleep that night from thinking over what she had heard.
But could she have seen the figure that was slinking in the snow at the rear door of Hayne's quarters that very evening, peering into the lighted rooms, and at last, after many an irresolute turn, knocking timidly for admission and then hiding behind the corner of the shed until Sam came and poked his pig-tailed head out into the wintry darkness in wondering effort to find the visitor, she would not have slept at all.
It was poor Clancy, once more mooning about the garrison and up to his old tricks. Clancy had been drinking; but he wanted to know, "could he spake with the lieutenant?"
IX.
"I have been reading over your letter of Thursday last, dear Steven," wrote Miss Travers, "and there is much that I feel I ought to answer. You and Kate are very much of a mind about the 'temptations' with which I am surrounded; but you are far more imaginative than she is, and far more courteous. There is so much about your letter that touches me deeply that I want to be frank and fair in my reply. I have been dancing all this evening, was out at dinner before that, and have made many calls this afternoon; but, tired as I am, my letter must be written, for to-morrow will be but the repetition of to-day. Is it that I am cold and utterly heartless that I can sit and write so calmly in reply to your fervent and appealing letter? Ah, Steven, it is what may be said of me; but, if cold and heartless to you, I have certainly given no man at this garrison the faintest reason to think that he has inspired any greater interest in him. They are all kind, all very attentive. I have told you how well Mr. Royce dances and Mr. Merton rides and Mr. Foster reads and talks. They entertain me vastly, and I do like it. More than this, Steven, I am pleased with their evident admiration,—not alone pleased and proud that they should admire me who am pledged to you,—not that alone, I frankly confess, but because it in itself is pleasant. It pleases me. Very possibly it is because I am vain.
"And yet, though my hours are constantly occupied, though they are here from morning till night, no one of them is more attentive than another. There are five or six who come daily. There are some who do not come at all. Am I a wretch, Steven? There are two or three that do not call who I wish would call. I would like to know them.
"Yet they know—they could not help it, with Kate here, and I never forget—that I am your promised wife. Steven, do you not sometimes forget the conditions of that promise? Even now, again and again do I not repeat to you that you ought to release me and free yourself? Of course your impulse will be to say my heart is changing,—that I have seen others whom I like better. No, I have seen no one I like as well. But is 'like' what you deserve,—what you ask? and is it not all I have ever been able to promise you? Steven, bear me witness, for Kate is bitterly unjust to me at times, I told you again and again last summer and fall that I did not love you and ought not to think of being your wife. Yet, poor, homeless, dependent as I am, how strong was the temptation to say yes to your plea! You know that I did not and would not until time and again your sweet mother, whom I do love, and Kate, who had been a mother to me, both declared that that should make no difference: the love would come: the happiest marriages the world over were those in which the girl respected the man of her choice: love would come, and come speedily, when once she was his wife. You yourself declared you could wait in patience,—you would woo and win by and by. Only promise to be your wife before returning to the frontier, and you would be content. Steven, are you content? You know you are not: you know you are unhappy; and it is all, not because I am growing to love some one else, but because I am not growing to love you. Heaven knows I want to love you; for so long as you hold me to it my promise is sacred and shall be kept. More than that, if you say that it is your will that I seclude myself from these attentions, give up dancing, give up rides, drives, walks, and even receiving visits, here, so be it. I will obey. But write this to me, Steven,—not to Kate. I am too proud to ask her to show me the letters I know she has received from you,—and there are some she has not shown me,—but I cannot understand a man's complaining to other persons of the conduct of the woman who is, or is to be, his wife. Forgive me if I pain you: sometimes even to myself I seem old and strange. I have lived so much alone, have had to think and do for myself so many years while Kate has been away, that perhaps I'm not 'like other girls;' but the respect I feel for you would be injured if I thought you strove to guide or govern me through others; and of one thing be sure, Steven, I must honor and respect and look up to the man I marry, love or no love.
"Once you said it would kill you if you believed I could be false to you. If by that you meant that, having given my promise to you to be your wife at some future time, I must school myself to love you, and will be considered false if love do not come at my bidding or yours, I say to you solemnly, release me now. I may not love, but I cannot and will not deceive you, even by simulating love that does not exist. Suppose that love were to be kindled in my heart. Suppose I were to learn to care for some one here. You would be the first one to know it; for I would tell you as soon as I knew it myself. Then what could I hope for,—or you? Surely you would not want to marry a girl who loved another man. But is it much better to marry one who feels that she does not love you? Think of it, Steven: I am very lonely, very far from happy, very wretched over Kate's evident trouble and all the sorrow I am bringing you and yours; but have I misled or deceived you in any one thing? Once only has a word been spoken or a scene occurred that you could perhaps have objected to. I told you the whole thing in my letter of Sunday last, and why I had not told Kate. We have not met since that night, Mr. Hayne and I, and may not; but he is a man whose story excites my profound pity and sorrow, and he is one of the two or three I feel that I would like to see more of. Is this being false to you or to my promise? If so, Steven, you cannot say that I have not given you the whole truth.
"It is very late at night,—one o'clock,—and Kate is not yet asleep, and the captain is still down-stairs, reading. He is not looking well at all, and Kate is sorely anxious about him. It was his evidence that brought years of ostracism and misery upon Lieutenant Hayne, and there are vague indications that in his own regiment the officers are beginning to believe that possibly he was not the guilty man. The cavalry officers, of course, say nothing to us on the subject, and I have never heard the full story. If he has been, as is suggested, the victim of a scoundrel, and Captain Rayner was at fault in his evidence, no punishment on earth could be too great for the villain who planned his ruin, and no remorse could atone for Captain Rayner's share. I never saw so sad a face on mortal man as Mr. Hayne's. Steven Van Antwerp, I wish I were a man! I would trace that mystery to the bitter end.