"Perhaps not, Leonard," said the chaplain, as the adjutant paused an instant at the threshold to say he would return the moment he had received the reports. "Perhaps not, nor would I say one word to underrate the heroism of Ray's exploit; but when we do hear of another I look to hear of it in some fellow as firm in his faith as he is in his sense of honor and duty, and some day we shall see."
But Leonard did not return in five minutes nor in ten, and Mrs. Leonard grew anxious. "This never happens unless something unusual has occurred." Captain Hay stepped through the hall and opened the outer door.
"There are lights dancing about over there on the parade near 'A' Troop's quarters. I wonder what's up. Hullo, Sanders! That you? When did you get back? Did you get your man?"
"Got two of 'em," was the breezy answer. "T'other one disguised as a gentleman in cits and just about starting on the night train for the West,—the gifted Mr. Howard, clerk of 'A' Troop."
Mrs. Davies was standing just within the parlor door at the moment, blushing over the praises lavished on her by the chaplain's impulsive helpmeet and trying hard to say civil and appropriate things to her guests. The officers, one and all, had edged into the hall-way in eagerness to hear the news.
"What was it Mr. Sanders said?" asked Mrs. Leonard, anxious to know what detained her husband. Hay half turned.
"He says they arrested two men, one of them apparently deserting, being in civilian dress and aboard the train,—Captain Devers's new clerk, Howard."
And then every one in the parlor saw that Mrs. Davies was seized as with sudden faintness. She turned very white and grasped at the nearest chair for support. "I'm only dizzy, not ill, or I don't know what it is," she protested, as they crowded round her, and Davies came quickly in, conscious that something was amiss. Nor did she recover her color or her calm. Nervous, fluttering answers only could she give to their sympathetic inquiries, and when presently Leonard reappeared, cool and imperturbable as ever, she was evidently relieved to see her guests departing. The adjutant explained his detention by saying he had gone to the colonel's with Sanders, who had galloped ahead, leaving his guard to bring along the prisoners in an ambulance, Paine too drunk to be able to move. They would hardly arrive before eleven.
"The colonel desires to see you at the office at eight o'clock in the morning," said he in low tone to Cranston. "Howard has been away all day,—since guard-mounting, in fact,—and no report was made of it. Devers has been notified that the colonel would investigate matters—the whole business, in fact—early to-morrow."
But who can tell what a day may bring forth? Devers, after a sleepless night, filled with foreboding of the wrath to come as the result of that impending investigation, sat nervously over his coffee while the trumpets were sounding first call for guard-mounting, and turned a shade yellower at the ring of the front-door bell. The servant re-entered the dining-room and announced that Lieutenant Leonard, the adjutant, desired to speak to the captain. For a moment he could not rise. Conscious of his own double-dealing, visions of arrest, charges, court-martial—heaven knows what all—were floating before his startled eyes, but go he had to. Summoning courage, bravado, or something, he swaggered into the hall.