Falconer felt his heart sink at the view his best friends were taking of this catastrophe. He felt that he was the victim of some hidden and mysterious circumstance over which he had no control; but how was that to be proved? and he knew that in the chief city of Mrs. Grundy the public always took the worst possible view of everything.
'You do not think—you dare not think,' he exclaimed half-entreatingly and half-defiantly, 'that I forgot my position and the honour of the corps, and took too much wine last night—in uniform and at a public ball too, in presence of the general commanding and all the staff?'
'I fear, my dear Falconer,' said Fotheringhame, 'that it only looks too much like that very mistake.'
'By heavens! I was never near the supper-tables but once—and had but one glass of Moselle!' cried Falconer impetuously.
'But people will be sceptical in such matters,' said Acharn, pulling his long black moustache angrily; 'and from much of what I heard on parade this morning there is a devil of a row impending.'
'Over me?'
'Yes.'
At that moment there came a single knock smartly on the door, and the adjutant entered with an expression of grave concern on his face. After a few words of kind inquiry, and half apology, he said:
'I am so sorry for you, my poor fellow, but the chief is furious, and, by his order, I have come—for your sword.'
The words seemed to sink into Falconer's soul. He knew all this implied, and that, too probably, it was the beginning of his destruction—the beginning of a bitter end!'