But the officer of the day had told a different tale, and the godless array at the bachelor mess was still having fun with it. Félicie, the self-styled French maid, had been from the start the object of no little interest among the non-commissioned element in garrison. Félicie was pious, if not actually pretty, and assiduous at first in Sunday morning attendance at the little Catholic church in town, whither Dwight's own horse and buggy and man were detailed to take her, for Inez could not think of placing her educated and traveled maid in the same category and wagon with the soldiers' wives. "Feelissy," from her very first appearance, was by no means popular with this critical sisterhood, and when it became evident that some of the best beaux among the sergeants were also moved to attend early church in Silver Hill, feeling grew strong against the usurper. Nor was the feeling modified by the fact soon discovered that the maid had higher aspirations. She was too good for the soldiers, said her commentators; but that goodness, said her defamers, wasn't proof against the wiles of those who had more money. Obviously the officers were aimed at in this observation, and it must be owned that Félicie's expressive eyes had sometimes wandered toward the mess, and that her glances fell not all on unresponsive others. The night of Blenke's wandering was windy. The officer of the day's little lantern blew out as he rounded a turn from the west gate toward the bluff behind the post of No. 4, to the end that he stumbled on the sentry unchallenged, and, when rebuked for his negligence, the sentry said he was troubled about something at Major Dwight's. He could have sworn, he said, the door to the high back stoop had opened just a moment ago, letting quite a streak of light into the darkness for the space of a few seconds, during which time he was almost sure he saw a slender feminine shape disappear into the house. Now, he could swear no one had entered the back gate for ten minutes, anyway, because he happened to be right there. If it was a woman, as he believed, she must have been out in the yard as much as those ten minutes, and perhaps someone was there with her that shouldn't be there. All this had the sentry urged in excuse of his failure to hear the approach of the officer of the day. It was a black, moonless, starless night, and the officer concluded to look. The board fence was high. He stepped within the gate, stumbled over a loose plank, made quite a noise and said a few audibly profane things as to the quartermaster's department for leaving walks in such shape, but he could see nothing. So in a sheltered nook he struck a match, and the instant he did so a man from the shadows lurched heavily against him, muttered, "Giv'sh--light--o' man" and sprawled in a heap at his feet. It proved to be Blenke, and Blenke proved to the satisfaction of the court that he was blind drunk.