“Bootles has been bothered, Mignon,” he answered.
“Poor Bootles!” stroking his cheek with her soft hand. “Bootles was vexed; Lal said so. But not with Mignon. Mignon told Lal so,” confidently.
“Never with Mignon,” answered Bootles, resting his cheek against the tossed golden curls, and feeling as if he had done this faithful baby heart a moral injustice by his hours of anger and doubt.
There was a moment of silence, broken by the nurse. “Have you heard, sir, how Mr. Gilchrist is?” she asked.
Bootles roused himself. “He is dead, nurse. Died half an hour ago.”
“Then, if you please, sir,” she asked, hesitatingly, “might I ask if it is true about Miss Mignon?”
“Yes, it is true,” his face darkening.
“Because, sir, Miss Mignon should have mourning,” she began, when Bootles cut her short.
“I shall not allow her to wear mourning for Mr. Gilchrist,” he said, curtly; so the nurse dared say no more.
Three days later the funeral took place; and if the facts of the dead man’s having acknowledged Miss Mignon as his child, and having admitted to Bootles that he had transferred her that night from his own quarters to Bootles’s rooms, created a sensation, it was as nothing to the intense surprise caused by the will, which was read, by the dead man’s desire, before all the officers of the regiment.