his thoughts of their wrongs recalled to him the tomb of the soldier Atherly and the carven captive savage supporter.  He could not pass the upright supported bier of an Indian brave—­slowly desiccating in the desert air—­without seeing in the dead warrior’s paraphernalia of arms and trophies some resemblance to the cross-legged crusader on whose marble effigy she had girlishly perched herself as she told the story of her ancestors.  Yet only the peaceful gloom and repose of the old church touched him now; even she, too, with all her glory of English girlhood, seemed to belong to that remote past.  She was part of the restful quiet of the church; the yews in the quaint old churchyard might have waved over her as well.

Still, he was eager to see his sister, and if he should conclude to impart to her his secret, she might advise him.  At all events, he decided to delay his departure until her arrival, a decision with which the commanding officer concurred, as a foraging party had that morning discovered traces of Indians in the vicinity of the fort, and the lately arrived commissary train had reported the unaccountable but promptly prevented stampede.

Unfortunately, his sister Jenny appeared accompanied by her husband, who seized an early opportunity to take Peter aside and confide to him his anxiety about her health, and the strange fits of excitement under which she occasionally labored.  Remembering the episode of the Californian woods three years ago, Peter stared at this good-natured, good-looking man, whose life he had always believed she once imperiled, and wondered more than ever at their strange union.

“Do you ever quarrel?” asked Peter bluntly.

“No,” said the good-hearted fellow warmly, “never!  We have never had a harsh word; she’s the dearest girl,—­the best wife in the world to me, but”—­he hesitated, “you know there are times when I think she confounds me with somebody else, and is strange!  Sometimes when we are in company she stands alone and stares at everybody, without saying a word, as if she didn’t understand them.  Or else she gets painfully excited and dances all night until she is exhausted.  I thought, perhaps,” he added timidly, “that you might know, and would tell me if she had any singular experience as a child,—­any illness, or,” he went on still more gently, “if perhaps her mother or father”—­

“No,” interrupted Peter almost brusquely, with the sudden conviction that this was no time for revelation of his secret, “no, nothing.”

“The doctor says,” continued Lascelles with that hesitating, almost mystic delicacy with which most gentlemen approach a subject upon which their wives talk openly, “that it may be owing to Jenny’s peculiar state of health just now, you know, and that if—­all went well, you know, and there should be—­don’t you see—­a little child”—­

Peter interrupted him with a start.  A child!  Jenny’s child!  Silver Cloud’s grandchild!  This was a complication he had not thought of.  No!  It was too late to tell his secret now.  He only nodded his head abstractedly and said coldly, “I dare say he is right.”