"
For this was the chief dread which hung on him, that she should ever
know, and in knowing, suffer for his sake.
The night rolled on, the army around him knew nothing of what had
happened. Chateauroy, conscious of his own coarse guilt against the
guest of his Marshal, kept the matter untold and undiscovered, under
the plea that he desired not to destroy the harmony of the general
rejoicing. The one or two field-officers with whom he took counsel
agreed to the wisdom of letting the night pass away undisturbed. The
accused was the idol of his own squadron; there was no gauge what might
not be done by troops heated with excitement and drunk with wine,
if they knew that their favorite comrade had set the example of
insubordination, and would be sentenced to suffer for it. Beyond
these, and the men employed in his arrest and guard, none knew what had
chanced; not the soldiery beneath that vast sea of canvas, many of whom
would have rushed headlong to mutiny and to destruction at his word; not
the woman who in the solitude of her wakeful hours was haunted by the
memory of his love-words, and felt steal on her the unacknowledged sense
that, if his future were left to misery, happiness could never more
touch her own; not the friend of his early days, laughing and drinking
with the officers of the staff.
None knew; not even Cigarette. She sat alone, so far away that none
sought her out, beside the picket-fire that had long died out, with the
little white dog of Zaraila curled on the scarlet folds of her skirt.
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