Now just in proportion as the Wrens would have nothing to say in
praise of Blakely, the Sanders household would have nothing but
praise to say. Kate's honest heart was hot with anger at Angela,
because the girl shrank from the subject as she would from evil
speaking, lying, and slandering, and here again, to paraphrase the
Irishman, too much heat had produced the coldness already referred to.
Sanders scoffed at the idea of Natzie's infatuation being sufficient
ground for family ostracism. "If there is a man alive who owes more
than Wren does to Blakely, I'm a crab," said he, "and as soon as he's
well enough to listen to straight talk he'll get it from me." "If
there's a girl in America as heartless as Angela Wren," said Mrs.
Sanders, "I hope I never shall have to meet her." But then Mrs.
Sanders, as we know, had ever been jealous of Angela on account of her
own true-hearted Kate, who refused to say one word on the subject
beyond what she said to Angela herself. And now they had propped their
patient in his reclining-chair and arranged the little table for "the
inquisitor general," as Mrs. Bridger preferred to refer to him, and
left them alone together behind closed doors, and had then gone forth
to find that all Camp Sandy seemed to wait with bated breath for the
outcome of that interview.
Sooner than was believed possible it came. An hour, probably, before
they thought the colonel could have gathered all he wished to know,
that officer was on the front piazza and sending an orderly to the
adjutant's office. Then came Major Plume, with quick and nervous step.
There was a two-minute conference on the piazza; then both officers
vanished within, were gone five minutes, and then Plume reappeared
alone, went straight to his home, and slammed the door behind him, a
solecism rarely known at Sandy, and presently on the hot and pulseless
air there arose the sound of shrill protestation in strange
vernacular. Even Wren heard the voice, and found something reminiscent
in the sound of weeping and wailing that followed. The performer was
unquestionably Elise--she that had won the ponderous, yet descriptive,
Indian name "Woman-Walk-in-the-Night."
And while this episode was still unexpired the orderly went for
Lieutenant Truman, and Truman, with two orderlies, for a box, a bulky
little chest, strapped heavily with iron, and this they lugged into
Sanders's hall and came out heated and mystified. Three hours later,
close-veiled and in droopy desolation, "Mademoiselle Lebrun" was
bundled into a waiting ambulance and started under sufficient escort,
and the care of the hospital matron, en route for Prescott, while
Dr. Graham was summoned to attend Mrs. Plume, and grimly went. "The
mean part of the whole business," said Mrs. Bridger, "is that nobody
knows what it means." There was no one along the line, except poor
Mrs. Plume, to regret that sudden and enforced departure, but there
was regret universal all over the post when it was learned, still
later in the afternoon, that one of the best soldiers and sergeants
in the entire garrison had taken the horse of one of the herd guard
and galloped away on the trail of the banished one. Sergeant Shannon,
at sunset parade, was reported absent without leave.