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“There, that is good,” he said. “Now set him down, Pete Galbraith. Yes–so, so! Sergeant Tom, ah, you will wake well, soon. Now the eyes a little wider. Good. Eh, Sergeant Tom, what is the matter? It is breakfast time–quite.”

Sergeant Tom’s eyes opened slowly and looked dazedly before him for a minute. Then they fell on Pierre. At first there was no recognition, then they became consciously clearer. “Pretty Pierre, you here in the barracks!” he said. He put his hand to his head, then rubbed his eyes roughly and looked up again. This time he saw Jen and her father. His bewilderment increased. Then he added: “What is the matter? Have I been asleep? What–!” He remembered. He staggered to his feet and felt his pockets quickly and anxiously for his letter. It was gone.

“The letter!” he said. “My orders! Who has robbed me? Faith, I remember. I could not keep awake after I drank the coffee. My papers are gone, I tell you, Galbraith,” he said, fiercely.

Then he turned to Jen: “You are not in this, Jen. Tell me.”

She was silent for a moment, then was about to answer, when he turned to the gambler and said: “You are at the bottom of this. Give me my papers.” But Pierre and Galbraith were as dumbfounded as the Sergeant himself to know that the letter was gone. They were stunned beyond speech when Jen said, flushing: “No, Sergeant Tom, I am the thief. When I could not wake you, I took the letter from your pocket and carried it to Inspector Jules last night,–or, rather, Sergeant Gellatly carried them. I wore his cap and cloak and passed for him.”

“You carried that letter to Inspector Jules last night, Jen”? said the soldier, all his heart in his voice.

Jen saw her father blanch, his mouth open blankly, and his lips refuse to utter the words on them. For the first time she comprehended some danger to him, to herself–to Val!

“Father, father,” she said,–“what is it?”

Pierre shrugged his shoulders and rejoined: “Eh, the devil! Such mistakes of women. They are fools–all.” The old man put out a shaking hand and caught his daughter’s arm. His look was of mingled wonder and despair, as he said, in a gasping whisper, “You carried that letter to Archangel’s Rise?”

“Yes,” she answered, faltering now; “Sergeant Tom had said how important it was, you remember. That it was his duty to take it to Inspector Jules, and be back within forty-eight hours. He fell asleep. I could not wake him. I thought, what if he were my brother–our Val. So, when you and Pretty Pierre went to bed, I put on Val’s clothes, took Sergeant Tom’s cloak and hat, carried the orders to Jules, and was back here by six o’clock this morning.”

Sergeant Tom’s eyes told his tale of gratitude. He made a step towards her; but the old man, with a strange ferocity, motioned him back, saying,

“Go away from this house. Go quick. Go now, I tell you, or by God,–I’ll–“

Here Pretty Pierre touched his arm.

Sergeant Tom drew back, not because he feared but as if to get a mental perspective of the situation. Galbraith again said to his daughter,–“Jen, you carried them papers? You! for him–for the Law!” Then he turned from her, and with hand clenched and teeth set spoke to the soldier: “Haven’t you heard enough? Curse you, why don’t you go?”

Sergeant Tom replied coolly: “Not so fast, Galbraith. There’s some mystery in all this. There’s my sleep to be accounted for yet. You had some reason, some”–he caught the eyes of Pierre. He paused. A light began to dawn on his mind, and he looked at Jen, who stood rigidly pale, her eyes fixed fearfully, anxiously, upon him. She too was beginning to frame in her mind a possible horror; the thing that had so changed her father, the cause for drugging the soldier. There was a silence in which Pierre first, and then all, detected the sound of horses’ hoofs. Pierre went to the door and looked out. He turned round again, and shrugged his shoulders with an expression of helplessness. But as he saw Jen was about to speak, and Sergeant Tom to move towards the door, he put up his hand to stay them both, and said: “A little–wait!”