He paused and sprang to his feet:
"A hundred times I've sworn no daughter of mine should ever marry a soldier! The better the soldier, the more reason she should not marry him—"
"But, sir—"
"There's no 'but' about it!" the Colonel thundered. "You're asking me to let you murder my girl, that's all—but it's life. I'll have to give my consent and wish you good luck, long life, and all the happiness you can get out of a soldier's lot."
The Colonel extended his hand and the Lieutenant grasped it with grateful eagerness.
The days that followed were red lettered in the calendar of life.
And then it came—a crash of thunder out of the clear sky—the thing he had somehow felt and dreaded.
A petty court-martial was called to adjust a question of army discipline. The court was composed of Z. Taylor, Colonel Commanding, Major Thomas F. Smith, a fiery-tempered gay officer of the old army, Lieutenant Jefferson Davis, and the new Second Lieutenant who had just arrived from the Jefferson Barracks at St. Louis.
The army regulations required that each officer sitting in court-martial should be in full uniform. The new arrival from St. Louis had come without his uniform. His trunk had miscarried and was returned to the Jefferson Barracks.
He rose with embarrassment: