They had to go, yet could soon be
regained. But no man could restore to him the pride and self-respect
that went when he realized that he was only one of several plucked and
deluded victims of a female sharper. While the Frenchwoman ogled and
languished behind the bars, Shannon wandered out into the world again,
a deserter from the troop he was ashamed to face, an unfollowed,
unsought fugitive among the mining camps in the Sierras. "Three stout
soldiers stricken from the rolls--two of them gone to their last
account," mused poor Plume, as at last he led his unhappy wife away to
the sea, "and all the work of one woman!"
Yes, Mrs. Plume was gone now for good and all, her devoted, yet
sore-hearted major with her, and Wren was sufficiently recovered to be
up and taking the air on his veranda, where Sanders sometimes stopped
to see him, and "pass the time of day," but cut his visits short and
spoke of everything but what was uppermost in his mind, because his
better half persuaded him that only ill would come from preaching.
Then, late one wonderful day, the interesting invalid, Mr. Neil
Blakely himself, was "paraded" upon the piazza in the Sanders's
special reclining-chair, and Kate and Mrs. Sanders beamed, while
nearly all society at the post came and purred and congratulated and
took sidelong glances up the row to where Angela but a while before
was reading to her grim old father, but where the father now read
alone, for Angela had gone, as was her custom at the hour, to her own
little room, and thither did Janet conceive it her duty to follow,
and there to investigate.
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