True to her declaration, she behaved so coldly and with such marked distance of manner to the colonel and his wife when they met in society immediately after the dinner that the colonel quietly told his wife she need not give either dinner or reception in honor of Mrs. Rayner’s return.  He would like to have her do something to welcome Miss Travers, for he thought the girl had much of her father in her.  He knew him well in the old days before and during the war, and liked him.  He liked her looks and her sweet, unaffected, cheery manner.  He liked the contrast between her and her sister; for Miss Travers had listened in silence to her sister’s exposition of what her manner should be to the colonel and his wife, and when they met she was bright and winsome.  The colonel stood and talked with her about her father, whom she could remember only vaguely, but of whom she never tired of hearing; and that night Mrs. Rayner rebuked her severely for her disloyalty to the captain, who had given her a home.

But when Mrs. Rayner heard that Major and Mrs. Waldron had invited Mr. Hayne to dine with them, and had invited to meet him two of the cavalry officers and their wives, she was incensed beyond measure.  She and Mrs. Waldron had a brief talk, as a result of which Mrs. Rayner refused to speak to Mrs. Waldron at the evening party given by Mrs. Stannard in honor of her and her sister.  It was this that brought on the crisis.  Whatever was said between the men was not told.  Major Waldron and Captain Rayner had a long consultation, and they took no one into their confidence; but Mrs. Rayner obeyed her husband, went to Mrs. Waldron and apologized for her rudeness, and then went with her sister and returned the call of the colonel’s wife; but she chose a bright afternoon, when she knew well the lady was not at home.

She retired from the contest, apparently, as has been said, and took much Christian consolation to herself from the fact that at so great a sacrifice she was obeying her husband and doing the duty she owed to him.  In very truth, however, the contest was withdrawn from her by the fact that for a week or more after his evening at the Waldrons’ Mr. Hayne did not reappear in garrison, and she had no cause to talk about him.  Officers visiting the house avoided mention of his name.  Ladies of the cavalry regiment calling upon Mrs. Rayner and Miss Travers occasionally spoke of him and his devotion to the men and his bravery at the fire, but rather as though they meant in a general way to compliment the Riflers, not Mr. Hayne; and so she heard little of the man whose existence was so sore a trial to her.  What she would have said, what she would have thought, had she known of the meeting between him and her guarded Nellie, is beyond us to describe; but she never dreamed of such a thing, and Miss Travers never dreamed of telling her,—­for the present, at least.  Fortunately—­or unfortunately—­for the latter, it was not so much of her relations with Mr. Hayne as of her relations