Still no motion, or any recognition whatever of the name; and it was not until the Illinoisan, who had just been making three ten-strikes in succession with his left hand, and who was naturally anxious to call the attention of his opponent to the exploit, touched him on the shoulder and literally shouted the word into his ear, that he paid any attention whatever.
"Me? Oh!"
"Did you notice that?" asked the keen-witted Captain, returning to the charge, as a repulsed soldier should always do. "His name is not Townsend, and he has not been long in the habit of being called by it; for it was forgetfulness that made him wait for it to be repeated three times!"
There was triumph in the tone of the Captain, now; and there was every thing but triumph in that of Margaret Hayley as she leaned heavily on his arm and said:
"Pray do not say any thing more about it! That man is nothing to me. Let us go back to the house."
"Wait one moment! I am going to do something to satisfy myself. Do you see that handkerchief? Sometimes initials tell a story that trunks and hotel-books do not."
The lawyer had thrown off his coat upon the chair behind him—a blue flannel coat, half military, which both remembered to have seen him wear after changing clothes from the accident at the pool. From the breast-pocket a white handkerchief hung temptingly almost half way out, and it was towards that that the hand of the officer dived downward. The owner of the coat was some distance away, following up one of his flying balls, and was not likely to see the examination made of his personal property, if it was done with quick hand and eye.
"Hector Coles, you would not do that!"
But she spoke too late. With the stereotyped lie on his lips that has been made the excuse for so many wrongs and scoundrelisms during all this unfortunate struggle, "All is fair in war-time!" the Captain whipped out the handkerchief, turned it quickly from corner to corner, glancing it to the light as he did so, and then as quickly returned it to the pocket, long before the owner had returned from watching the effect of his shot. Margaret Hayley had not intended to join in the reprehensible act, but she involuntarily did so, and she as well as the officer saw the initials "H. T." elaborately embroidered in red silk in one of the corners. It is not too much to say that a pang of joy went through her heart at that refutation of the Captain's mean suspicions and that evidence to her own mind that the man in whom she had become so suddenly and unaccountably interested was playing no game of deceit and treachery. "H. T." were the initials, Horace Townsend was the name that he had given her, and there could be no doubt whatever of the truth of his statement.
Captain Hector Coles did not seem by any means so well satisfied with the result of his researches. Something very like a scowl answered the look of indignation upon Margaret Hayley's face, as he said: