One moment her big eyes clouded, but unflinchingly they met his gaze.
Then, something in the stern scrutiny of her aunt's regard stirred all
that was mutinous within her; yet there was an irrepressible twitching
about the corners of the rosy mouth, a twinkle about the big brown
eyes that should have given them pause, even as she demurely answered: "Yes."
"When?" demanded the soldier, his muscular hand clutching ominously at
the wooden rail; his jaw setting squarely. "When--and where?"
But now the merriment with which she had begun changed slowly at sight
of the repressed fury in his rugged Gaelic face. She, too, was
trembling as she answered: "Just after recall--down at the pool."
For an instant he stood glaring, incredulous. "At the pool! You! My
bairnie!" Then, with sudden outburst of passionate wrath, "Go to your
room!" said he.
"But listen--father, dear," she began, imploringly. For answer he
seized her slender arm in almost brutal grasp and fairly hurled her
within the doorway. "Not a word!" he ground between his clinched
teeth. "Go instantly!" Then, slamming the door upon her, he whirled
about as though to seek his sister's face, and saw beyond her,
rounding the corner of the northwest set of quarters, coming in from
the mesa roadway at the back, the tall, white figure of the missing
man.
Another moment and Lieutenant Blakely, in the front room of his
quarters, looking pale and strange, was being pounced upon with eager
questioning by Duane, his junior, when the wooden steps and veranda
creaked under a quick, heavy, ominous tread, and, with livid face and
clinching hands, the troop commander came striding in.
"Mr. Blakely," said he, his voice deep with wrath and tremulous with
passion, "I told you three days ago my daughter and you must not meet,
and--you know why! To-day you lured her to a rendezvous outside the
post--"
"Captain Wren!"
"Don't lie! I say you lured her, for my lass would never have met
you--"
"You shall unsay it, sir," was Blakely's instant rejoinder. "Are you
mad--or what? I never set eyes on your daughter to-day--until a moment
ago."
And then the voice of young Duane was uplifted, shouting for help.
With a crash, distinctly heard out on the parade, Wren had struck his
junior down.