"I sincerely thank you," I returned in the same spirit, "and I can certainly return the compliment most heartily. It is so long since I was privileged to dance with a lady that I confess to having felt decidedly awkward at the start, but your step proved so accommodating that I became at once at home, and enjoyed the waltz immensely. I fail to discover any seats in the room, or I should endeavor to find one vacant for you."

"Oh, I am not in the least tired." She was looking at me with so deep an expression of interest in her eyes that I dimly wondered at it.

"Did I understand rightly," she asked, playing idly with her fan, "that Major Monsoon introduced you to me as Colonel Curran of General Halleck's staff?"

What the deuce am I up against now? I thought, and my heart beat quickly. Yet retreat was impossible, and I answered with a.s.sumed carelessness:

"I am, most a.s.suredly, Colonel Curran."

"From Ohio?"

This was certainly coming after me with a vengeance, and I stole one quick glance at the girl's face. It was devoid of suspicion, merely evincing a polite interest.

"I have the honor of commanding the Sixth Artillery Regiment from that State."

"You must pardon me, Colonel, for my seeming inquisitiveness," and her eyes sparkled with demure mischief. "Yet I cannot quite understand. I was at school in Connecticut with a Miss Curran whose father was an officer of artillery from Ohio, and, naturally, I at once thought of her when the Major p.r.o.nounced your name; yet it certainly cannot be you--you are altogether too young, for Myrtle must be eighteen."

I laughed, decidedly relieved from what I feared might prove a most awkward situation.

"Well, yes, Miss Minor, I am indeed somewhat youthful to be Myrtle's father," I said at a venture, "but I might serve as her brother, you know, and not stretch the point of age over-much."

She clasped her hands on my arm with a gesture of delight.

"Oh, I am so glad; I knew Myrtle had a brother, but never heard he also was in the army. Did you know, Colonel, she was intending to come down here with me when I returned South, at the close of our school year, but from some cause was disappointed. How delighted she would have been to meet you! I shall certainly write and tell her what a splendidly romantic time we had together. You look so much like Myrtle I wonder I failed to recognize you at once."

She was rattling on without affording me the slightest opportunity to slip in a word explanatory, when her glance chanced to fall upon some one who was approaching us through the throng.

"Oh, by the way, Colonel, there is another of Myrtle's old schoolmates present to-night--a most intimate friend, indeed, who would never forgive me if I permitted you to go without meeting her."

She drew me back hastily.

"Edith," she said, touching the sleeve of a young woman who was slowly pa.s.sing, "Edith, wait just a moment, dear; this is Colonel Curran-- Myrtle Curran's brother, you know. Colonel Curran, Mrs. Brennan."

CHAPTER XVI

THE WOMAN I LOVED

THE crucial moment had arrived, and I think my heart actually stopped beating as I stood gazing helplessly into her face. I saw her eyes open wide in astonished recognition, and then a deep flush swept over throat and cheek. For the instant I believed she would not speak, or that she would give way to her excitement and betray everything. I durst give no signal of warning, for there existed no tie between us to warrant my expecting any consideration from her. It was an instant so tense that her silence seemed like a blow. Yet it was only an instant. Then her eyes smiled into mine most frankly, and her hand was extended.

"I am more than delighted to meet you, Colonel Curran," she said calmly, although I could feel her lips tremble to the words, while the fingers I held were like ice. "Myrtle was one of my dearest friends, and she chanced to be in my mind even as we met. That was why," she added, turning toward Miss Minor, as though she felt her momentary agitation had not pa.s.sed un.o.bserved, "I was so surprised when you first presented Colonel Curran."

"I confess to having felt strangely myself," returned the other, archly, "although I believe I concealed my feelings far better than you did, Edith. Really, I thought you were going to faint. It must be that Colonel Curran exercises some strange occult influence over the weaker s.e.x. Perhaps he is the seventh son of a seventh son; are you, Colonel?

However, dear, I am safe for the present from his mysterious spell, and you will be compelled to face the danger alone, as here comes Lieutenant Hammersmith to claim the dance I've promised him."

Before Mrs. Brennan could interfere, the laughing girl had placed her hand on the Lieutenant's blue sleeve, and, with a mocking good-bye flung backward over her shoulder, vanished in the crowd, leaving us standing there alone.

The lady waited in such apparent indifference, gently tapping the floor with her neatly shod foot, her eyes wandering carelessly over the throng in our front, that I felt utterly at sea. Evidently she had no intention of addressing me, yet I could not continue to stand there beside her in silence like a fool. That she possessed a pretty temper I already knew, but better a touch of that than this silent disdain.

"Would you be exceedingly angry if I were to ask you to dance?" I questioned, stealing surrept.i.tiously a glance at her proudly averted face.

"Angry? Most a.s.suredly not," in apparent surprise. "Yet I trust you will not ask me. I have been upon the floor only once to-night. I am not at all in the mood."

The words were not encouraging, yet they served to break the ice, and I was never easily daunted.

"If there were chairs here I should venture to ask even a greater favor--that you would consent to sit out this set with me."

She turned slightly, lifted her eyes inquiringly to mine, and her face lightened.

"No doubt we might discover seats without difficulty, in the anteroom,"

she answered, indicating the direction by a glance. "There do not appear to be many 'sitters-out' at this ball, and the few who do are not crowded."

If the pendulum of hope and despair swings one way, the unalterable laws of mental gravitation compel it to go just as far the other, and although I do not remember uttering so much as a word while we traversed the crowded floor and gained entrance to the smaller room beyond, yet my heart was singing a song of the deepest hope. The apartment contained, as she prophesied, but few occupants, and I conducted her to the farther end of it, where we found a comfortable divan and no troublesome neighbors.

As I glanced at her now, I marked a distinct change in her face. The old indifference, so well a.s.sumed while we were in the presence of others, had utterly vanished as by magic, and she sat looking at me in anxious yet impetuous questioning.

"Captain Wayne," she exclaimed, her eyes never once leaving my face, "what does this mean? this masquerade? this wearing of the Federal uniform? this taking of another's name? this being here at all?"

"If I should say that I came hoping to see you again," I answered, scarce knowing how best to proceed or how far to put confidence in her, "what would you think?"

The color flamed quickly into her cheeks, but the clear eyes never faltered. They seemed to read my very soul.

"If that is true, that you were extremely foolish to take such a risk for so small a reward," she returned calmly. "Nor, under these circ.u.mstances, would I remain here so much as a moment to encourage you. But it is not true. This is no light act; your very life must lie in the balance, or you could never a.s.sume such risk. Doubtless you hesitate to trust me fully, but I a.s.sure you you need not, for you have placed me under certain personal obligations which I have no desire to ignore. Captain Wayne, you are in trouble, in danger--will you not tell me all, and permit me to aid you by every means in my power?"

"I would trust you gladly with my life or my honor," I replied soberly.

"If I had less faith in you I should not be here now."

She started slightly at the words, and for an instant her eyes fell.

"Your life?" she questioned, "do you mean that is in the balance?"

"I understand that I am condemned to be shot as a spy at daybreak."

"Shot? On what authority? Who told you?"

"On the order of General Sheridan. My informant was Lieutenant Caton, of his staff."

"Shot? As a spy? Why, it surely cannot be! Frank said--Captain Wayne, believe me, I knew absolutely nothing of all this. Do not think I should ever have rested if I had dreamed that you were held under so false a charge. I promised you I would see General Sheridan on your behalf."

"Yes," I a.s.sented hastily, for her agitation was so great I feared it might attract the attention of others. "I remember you said so at the time of my arrest, but supposed you had either forgotten or had found your intercession fruitless."

"Why, how you must have despised me! Forgotten?"--her eyes filled instantly with tears. "Not for an hour, Captain Wayne, but Frank--" she bit her lip impatiently--"I was told, that is, I was led to believe that you were--had been sent North as a prisoner of war late last night. Otherwise I should have insisted upon seeing you--on pleading your cause with the General himself. The Major and I breakfasted with him this morning, but your name was not mentioned, for I believed you safe."

She did not appear to realize, so deep was her present indignation and regret, that my hand had found a resting-place upon her own.

"You must believe me, Captain Wayne; I could not bear to have you feel that I could prove such an ingrate."