The clouds of the night had all blown away, and the morning was bright and cheerful. The frost that for some days had held the garden-beds in its grasp had relaxed, and they were now soft and muddy.
“Hello,” said the sergeant, suddenly pausing in his walk, “some young rascal has been tramping over this marigold-bed by Eugene’s window—just about the size of his foot too. Why, what’s that?” and he wrinkled his eyebrows as his eyes fell on the blood-stains on the sill. “There’s something wrong here. I’ll investigate. If I’m not a bad guesser some one has been getting in this window. I told Bess she ought not to leave it open; but she would do it, and she didn’t expect the boy to come back either. Just a woman’s foolishness.”
He strode quietly up to the window, and tried to look in. The blind was down so he could not do it; therefore he put his hands on the sash, and softly raised it.
More softly than he had raised it he put it down, and his amazed and discontented expression vanished instantaneously. His lips formed themselves into an exclamation of surprise; and uttering a long, low whistle, he nimbly picked his way over the muddy paths back to the front of the house.
“Hello, Bess dear,” he said, saluting her with an affectionate tap on the shoulder as she whisked into view with a duster in her hand, “you’re the prettiest woman I ever saw.”
“Stephen, are you crazy?” she said rather pettishly; “and why didn’t you wipe your feet? You are tracking up my clean hall.”
“You’re out of sorts, Bess; you find the house lonely without the boy.”
She hung her head without speaking. She had started out with the intention of bearing her loss bravely while it should last, and she was not yet willing to give in.
“I’m hungry,” said the sergeant unexpectedly; “can’t I have some more breakfast?”
In a trice her white head was held up again. “Why, Stephen, you had your breakfast at the railway station.”