In the morning, therefore, the orderly came with the customary
compliments to say to Captain Wren that the post commander desired to
see him at the office.
It was then nearly nine o'clock. Wren had had a sleepless night and
was in consultation with Dr. Graham when the summons came. "Ask that
Captain Sanders be sent for at once," said the surgeon, as he pressed
his comrade patient's hand. "The major has his adjutant and clerk and
possibly some other officers. You should have at least one friend."
"I understand," briefly answered Wren, as he stepped to the hallway to
get his sun hat. "I wish it might be you." The orderly was already
speeding back to the office at the south end of the brown rectangle of
adobe and painted pine, but Janet Wren, ministering, according to her
lights, to Angela in the little room aloft, had heard the message and
was coming down. Taller and more angular than ever she looked as, with
flowing gown, she slowly descended the narrow stairway.
"I have just succeeded in getting her to sleep," she murmured. "She
has been dreadfully agitated ever since awakened by the voices and the
running this morning, and she must have cried herself to sleep last
night. R-r-r-obert, would it not be well for you to see her when she
wakes? She does not know--I could not tell her--that you are under
arrest."
Graham looked more "dour" than did his friend of the line. Privately
he was wondering how poor Angela could get to sleep at all with Aunt
Janet there to soothe her. The worst time to teach a moral lesson,
with any hope of good effect, is when the recipient is suffering from
sense of utter injustice and wrong, yet must perforce listen. But it
is a favorite occasion with the "ower guid." Janet thought it would be
a long step in the right direction to bring her headstrong niece to
the belief that all the trouble was the direct result of her having
sought, against her father's wishes, a meeting with Mr. Blakely. True,
Janet had now some doubt that such had been the case, but, in what she
felt was only stubborn pride, her niece refused all explanation.
"Father would not hear me at the time," she sobbed. "I am condemned
without a chance to defend myself or--him." Yet Janet loved the bonny
child devotedly and would go through fire and water to serve her best
interests, only those best interests must be as Janet saw them. That
anything very serious might result as a consequence of her brother's
violent assault on Blakely, she had never yet imagined. That further
complications had arisen which might blacken his record she never
could credit for a moment. Mullins lay still unconscious, and not
until he recovered strength was he to talk with or see anyone. Graham
had given faint hope of recovery, and declared that everything
depended on his patient's having no serious fever or setback. In a few
days he might be able to tell his story. Then the mystery as to his
assailant would be cleared in a breath. Janet had taken deep offense
that the commanding officer should have sent her brother into close
arrest without first hearing of the extreme provocation. "It is an
utterly unheard-of proceeding," said she, "this confining of an
officer and gentleman without investigation of the affair," and she
glared at Graham, uncomprehending, when, with impatient shrug of his
big shoulders, he asked her what had they done, between them, to
Angela. It was his wife put him up to saying that, she reasoned, for
Janet's Calvinistic dogmas as to daughters in their teens were ever at
variance with the views of her gentle neighbor. If Angela had been
harshly dealt with, undeserving, it was Angela's duty to say so and to
say why, said Janet. Meantime, her first care was her wronged and
misjudged brother. Gladly would she have gone to the office with him
and stood proudly by his side in presence of his oppressor, could such
a thing be permitted. She marveled that Robert should now show so
little of tenderness for her who had served him loyally, if
masterfully, so very long. He merely laid his hand on hers and said he
had been summoned to the commanding officer's, then went forth into
the light and left her.