That no one should now appear on the colonel’s piazza was obviously a disappointment to several people.  In some way or other most of the breakfast tables at the post had been enlivened by accounts of the mysterious shooting.  The soldiers going the rounds with the “police-cart,” the butcher and grocer and baker from town, the old milkwoman with her glistening cans, had all served as newsmongers from kitchen to kitchen, and the story that came in with the coffee to the lady of the house had lost nothing in bulk or bravery.  The groups of officers chatting and smoking in front of head-quarters gained accessions every moment, while the ladies seemed more absorbed in chat and confidences than in the sweet music of the band.

What fairly exasperated some men was the fact that the old officer of the day was not out on the parade where he belonged.  Only the new incumbent was standing there in statuesque pose as the band trooped along the line, and the fact that the colonel had sent out word that the ceremony would proceed without Captain Chester only served to add fuel to the flame of popular conjecture.  It was known that the colonel was holding a consultation with closed doors with the old officer of the day, and never before since he came to the regiment had the colonel been known to look so pale and strange as when he glanced out for just one moment and called his orderly.  The soldier sprang up, saluted, received his message, and, with every eye following him, sped off towards the old stone guard-house.  In three minutes he was on his way back, accompanied by a corporal and private of the guard in full dress uniform.

“That’s Leary,—­the man who fired the shot,” said Captain Wilton to his senior lieutenant, who stood by his side.

“Belongs to B Company, doesn’t he?” queried the subaltern.  “Seems to me I have heard Captain Armitage say he was one of his best men.”

“Yes.  He’s been in the regiment as long as I can remember.  What on earth can the colonel want him for?  Near as I can learn, he only fired by Chester’s order.”

“And neither of them knows what he fired at.”

It was perhaps ten minutes more before Private Leary came forth from the door-way of the colonel’s office, nodded to the corporal, and, raising their white-gloved hands in salute to the group of officers, the two men tossed their rifles to the right shoulder and strode back to the guard.

Another moment, and the colonel himself opened his door and appeared in the hall-way.  He stopped abruptly, turned back and spoke a few words in low tone, then hurried through the groups at the entrance, looking at no man, avoiding their glances, and giving faint and impatient return to the soldierly salutations that greeted him.  The sweat was beaded on his forehead; his lips were white, and his face full of a trouble and dismay no man had ever seen there before.  He spoke to no one, but walked rapidly homeward, entered, and closed the gate and door behind him.