CHAPTER XIII.
AN ENIGMA.
Despite the silent vow he had made, Captain Dalton could not keep away from Laura Trelawney, the only woman the world seemed to hold for him, and yet whom he had no hope of winning.
His was no lovesick boy's fancy, yet it made him sallow, pale, and worn-looking, restless in solitude, and taciturn in society, always seeking for action, not for any tangible result that action gave, but as a means of present distraction.
The baffled Jerry Wilmot was not slow, at mess and elsewhere, to note the change in the generally quiet and even tenor of his brother officer's general mood, and drew his own conclusions therefrom, and these were that he was not progressing favourably in his suit with the brilliant young widow.
'If a widow she really is,' said Jerry one day after evening parade, when Dalton's groom brought his horse round to the mess hut, and he was about to ride over to Chilcote Grange.
'How—what the devil do you mean, Jerry?' asked Dalton, greatly ruffled.
'Only that a rumour is abroad that has in it a deuced unpleasant sound.'
'To what effect?'
'That her husband is not dead—that she is not a widow at all—that he ran away from her, or something of that kind. Have you not remarked how she sneers at matrimony? Egad, I hope she is not divorcée!'
'Nonsense, Jerry; how dare you let your tongue run on thus!'