“What do you mean, Mar—” but before Maria Heywood could complete her sentence, all power of speech was taken from her in the emotion with which she regarded what, after a momentary glance, met her view.
It was her lover, fully equipped for parade, and walking towards the men with a calm and deliberate step, which seemed to evince total unconsciousness that any thing unusual had happened.
“Here is a chair, my love—you really tremble as if the man was a ghost. Now then, we shall have a scene between him and our amiable commandant.”
“God forbid!” tremulously answered the almost bewildered girl; “I am the cause of all.”
“You! Stuff, Maria. What nonsense you talk, for a sensible girl. How should you be the cause? but, positively, Ronayne can never have been away from the Fort.”
“Do you think so, Margaret?”
“I am sure of it. Only look at him. He is as spruce as if he had only just come out of a band-box. But hush, not a word. There, that's a dear. Lean your head against my shoulder. Don Bombastes speaks!”
“No sign of Mr. Ronayne yet?” demanded Captain Headley, his back turned to the slowly advancing officer, whose proximity not one of the men seemed inclined to announce, possibly because they feared rebuke for insubordination. Mr. Elmsley, he pursued to that officer, who, acting on a significant half-glance from his friend, was silent also as to his approach. “Let a formal report of his absence without leave, be made to me immediately after the parade has been dismissed.”
“Nay, sir,” said the ensign, in his ordinary voice and close in the ear of the speaker, “not as having been absent from duty, I trust. I am not aware that I have ever missed a guard or a parade yet, without your leave.”
At the first sound of his voice, the surprised commandant had turned quickly round, and there encountered the usual deferential salute of his subordinate.