“Oh! say you so; bless you for that!” continued the Virginian, eagerly; “yes, I will be calm—seek rest to restore me for the morning; I will see Captain Headley, and entreat him to let me take out a detachment. Oh! he will not refuse me. Do you think he will, Mrs. Headley? Surely you will plead for me. I know twenty brave fellows who will cheerfully volunteer for the duty.”
“Alas!” said Mrs. Headley, with a deep despondency at her heart, “I fear I can give you no encouragement there, Ronayne; I am quite satisfied, indeed, that Headley will not suffer a man to leave the fort at this crisis.”
“Crisis! what crisis!” interrupted the youth vehemently. “Obdurate man, has the past not cured him of his martinetism? By heaven, let him refuse me, and I, alone and without permission, will go in search of my wife. Fool, fool that I was to return now without her; but I had hoped she was here;” and again he burst into another wild agony of grief.
Corporal Collins touched his cap and advanced a pace forward.
“The Captain said this afternoon that the next time your honor left the fort you should never return to it. I thought it was my duty, your honor, to tell you, for I couldn't make out what he meant.”
“Oh! he did, did he?” muttered Ronayne, with sudden calm. “Well, be it so!”
“Corporal Collins,” said Mrs. Headley sternly to him, as she arose from her kneeling posture, “you would have done better to have held your peace on a matter which you say you do not comprehend. Mr. Ronayne has annoyance sufficient without your misinterpreting to him an observation of his commanding officer, which, in all probability, was made in any other spirit than that which your words would convey.”
The corporal made a respectful obeisance and withdrew into the corridor, rebuked.
“Ronayne,” pursued Mrs. Headley, “I can make all allowance for your excited feelings. I will speak to Headley on the matter; and, although I cannot hold out to you any hope that he either will even acknowledge the necessity, much less take the action you desire, I feel perfectly assured that, when you have heard his reasons, you will agree with us both that it would neither be of avail nor politic to take a step of this kind for the recovery of her whom we all deplore—God knows, no one more bitterly than myself.”
“Mrs. Headley, you surprise me; I can scarcely believe that I understand you rightly. I had always thought your feelings towards Maria were those of a mother for her child?”