Once within-doors, it was too dark for Armitage to see the features of
his lieutenant; and he had his own reasons for desiring to read them.
Mr. Jerrold, on the other hand, seemed disposed to keep in the shadows
as much as possible. He made no movement to open the shutters of the one
window which admitted light from the front, and walked back to his
bedroom door, glanced in there as though to see that there were no
occupants, then carefully closed it as he returned to face his captain.
He took off his helmet and placed it on the centre-table, then,
thrusting his thumbs inside the handsome, gold-broidered sword-belt,
stood in a jaunty attitude but with a very uneasy look in his eyes to
hear what his senior might have to say. Between the two men an
invitation to sit would have been a superfluity. Neither had ever
remained long enough in the other's quarters, since the exchange of the
first calls when Jerrold came to the garrison, to render a chair at all
necessary.
"Be good enough to strike a light, Mr. Jerrold," said Armitage,
presently, seeing that his unwilling host made no effort on his own
account.
"I proposed going out at once, captain, and presume you cannot have any
very extended remarks to make."
"You cannot see the writing I have to call your attention to without a
light. I shall detain you no longer than is necessary. Had you an
engagement?"
"Nothing of great consequence. I presume it will keep."
"It will have to. The matter I have come upon will admit no further
delay. Light your lamp, if you please."
And Jerrold did so, slowly and with much reluctance. He wiped his
forehead vigorously the instant the flame began to splutter, but as the
clear, steady light of the argand gradually spread over the little room
Armitage could see the sweat again beading his forehead, and the dark
eyes were glancing nervously about, and the hands that were so firm and
steady and fine the year before and held the Springfield in so light yet
immovable an aim were twitching now. It was no wonder Jerrold's score
had dropped some thirty per cent. His nerve had gone to pieces.
Armitage stood and watched him a moment. Then he slowly spoke:
"I have no desire to allude to the subject of your conversation with
Merrick. It was to put an end to such a thing--not to avail myself of
any information it might give--that I hurried in. We will put that aside
and go at once to the matter that brings me back. You are aware, of
course, that your conduct has compromised a woman's name, and that the
garrison is talking of nothing else."
Jerrold grasped the back of a chair with one slender brown hand, and
looked furtively about as though for some hope of escape. Something like
a startled gulp seemed to work his throat-muscles an instant; then he
stammered his reply:
"I don't know what you mean."
"You _do_ know what I mean. Captain Chester has already told you."
"Captain Chester came in here and made an unauthorized inspection of my
quarters because he heard a shot fired by a sentry. I was out: I don't
deny that. But he proceeded to say all manner of insulting and
unwarrantable things, and tried to force me to hand in a resignation,
simply because I was out of quarters after taps. I could account for
_his_ doing something so idiotic, but I'm at a loss to comprehend your
taking it up."
"The most serious allegation ever made against an officer of the
regiment is made against you, the senior lieutenant of my company, and
the evidence furnished me by the colonel and by Captain Chester is of
such a character that, unless you can refute it and clear her name, you
will have a settlement with me to start with, and your dismissal from
the regiment--"
"Settlement with you? What concern have you in the matter?" interrupted
Jerrold.
"Waste no words on that, Mr. Jerrold. Understand that where her name is
concerned no man on earth is more interested than I. Now answer me. You
were absent from your quarters for some hours after the doctor's party.
Somebody believed to have been you was seen and fired at for refusing to
halt at the order of Captain Chester at 3.30 in the morning. The ladder
that usually hung at your fence was found at the colonel's while you
were out, and that night a woman's name was compromised beyond repair
unless you can repair it. Unless you prove beyond peradventure where you
were both that night and last night,--prove beyond question that you
were not where you are believed to have been,--her name is stained and
yours blackened forever. There are other things you must fully explain;
but these first."
Jerrold's face was growing gray and sickly. He stared at the stern eyes
before him, and could make no answer. His lips moved dryly, but made no
sound.
"Come, I want to hear from you. Where were you, if not with, or seeking,
her? Name your place and witnesses."
"By God, Captain Armitage, the army is no longer a place for a
gentleman, if his every movement is to be spied upon like this!"
"The world is no place for a man of your stamp, is perhaps a better way
of putting it," said Armitage, whose fingers were twitching
convulsively, and whose whole frame quivered with the effort he was
making to restrain the rage and indignation that consumed him. He could
not--he would not--believe in her guilt. He must have this man's proof,
no matter how it might damn _him_ for good and all, no matter whom else
it might involve, so long as it cleared her precious name. He must be
patient, he must be calm and resolute; but the man's cold-blooded,
selfish, criminal concealment nearly maddened him. With infinite effort
he controlled himself, and went on:
"But it is of her I'm thinking, not of you. It is the name you have
compromised and can clear, and should clear, even at the expense of your
own,--in fact, Mr. Jerrold, _must_ clear. Now will you tell me where you
were and how you can prove it?"
"I decline to say. I won't be cross-questioned by men who have no
authority. Captain Chester said he would refer it to the colonel; and
when _he_ asks I will answer,--not until then."
"I ask in his name. I am authorized by him, for he is not well enough to
meet the ordeal."
"You say so, and I don't mean to dispute your word, Captain Armitage,
but I have a right to demand some proof. How am I to know he authorized
you?"
"He himself gave me this letter, in your handwriting," said Armitage;
and, opening the long envelope, he held forth the missive over which the
poor old colonel had gone nearly wild. "He found it the morning they
left,--in her garden."
If Jerrold's face had been gray before, it was simply ghastly now. He
recoiled from the sight after one fruitless effort to grasp the letter,
then rallied with unlooked-for spirit:
"By heaven, Armitage, suppose I _did_ write that letter? What does it
prove but what I say,--that somebody has been prying and spying into my
affairs? How came the colonel by it, if not by fraud or treachery?"
"He picked it up in the garden, I tell you,--among the rose-bushes,
where she--where Miss Renwick had been but a few moments before, and
where it might appear that she had dropped it."
"_She!_ That letter! What had she to do with it? What right had she to
read it?"
Armitage stepped impulsively forward. A glad, glorious light was
bursting upon his soul. He could almost have seized Jerrold's hand and
thanked him; but proofs--proofs were what he needed. It was not his mind
that was to be convinced, it was "society" that must be satisfied of her
utter innocence, that it might be enabled to say, "Well, I never for a
moment believed a word of it." Link by link the chain of circumstantial
evidence must be destroyed, and this was only one.
"You mean that that letter was not intended for Miss Renwick?" he asked,
with eagerness he strove hard to repress.
"It was never meant for anybody," said Jerrold, the color coming back to
his face and courage to his eyes. "That letter was never sent by me to
any woman. It's my writing, of course, I can't deny that; but I never
even meant it to go. If it left that desk it must have been stolen. I've
been hunting high and low for it. I knew that such a thing lying around
loose would be the cause of mischief. God! is _that_ what all this fuss
is about?" And he looked warily, yet with infinite anxiety, into his
captain's eyes.
"There is far more to it, as you well know, sir," was the stern answer.
"For whom was this written, if not for her? It won't do to _half_ clear
her name."
"Answer me this, Captain Armitage. Do you mean that that letter has
compromised Miss Renwick?--that it is she whose name has been involved,
and that it was of her that Chester meant to speak?"
"Certainly it was,--and I too."
There was an instant's silence; then Jerrold began to laugh nervously:
"Oh, well, I fancy it isn't the first time the revered and respected
captain has got away off the track. All the same I do not mean to
overlook his language to me; and I may say right now, Captain Armitage,
that yours, too, calls for explanation."
"You shall have it in short order, Mr. Jerrold, and the sooner you
understand the situation the better. So far as I am concerned, Miss
Renwick needed no defender; but, thanks to your mysterious and
unwarranted absence from quarters two very unlucky nights, and to other
circumstances I have no need to name, and to your _penchant_ for
letter-writing of a most suggestive character, it _is_ Miss Renwick
whose name has been brought into question here at this post, and most
prominently so. In plain words, Mr. Jerrold, you who brought this
trouble upon her by your own misconduct must clear her, no matter at
whose expense, or--"
"Or what?"
"I make no threats. I prefer that you should make the proper
explanations from a proper sense of what is due."
"And suppose I say that no man is called upon to explain a situation
which has been distorted and misrepresented by the evil imagination of
his fellows?"
"Then I may have to wring the truth out of you,--and _will_; but, for
her sake, I want as little publicity as possible. After this display on
your part, I am not bound to show you any consideration whatever.
Understand this, however: the array of evidence that you were
feloniously inside Colonel Maynard's quarters that night and at his
cottage window last night is of such a character that a court would
convict you unless your _alibi_ was conclusive. Leave the service you
certainly shall, unless this whole thing is cleared up."
"I never was anywhere near Colonel Maynard's either last night or the
other night I was absent."
"You will have to prove it. Mere denials won't help you in the face of
such evidence as we have that you were there the first time."
"What evidence?"
"The photograph that was stolen from Mrs. Maynard between two and four
o'clock that morning was seen in your drawer by Major Sloat at reveille.
You were fool enough to show it to him."
"Captain Armitage, I shall be quite able to show, when the proper time
comes, that the photograph I showed Major Sloat was _not_ stolen: it was
given me."
"That is beyond belief, Mr. Jerrold. Once and for all, understand this
case. You have compromised her good name by the very mystery of your
actions. You have it in your power to clear her by proving where you
were, since you were not near her,--by showing how you got that
photograph,--by explaining how you came to write so strange a letter.
Now I say to you, will you do it, instantly, or must we wring it from
you?"