'"
"She could do no different," said the general, "having fixed her love on
him. It's the strain of the Sioux. _We_ call her conduct criminal:--they
call it sublime."
And one night, while decision in Nanette's case was still pending, and,
still self-secluded, she hid within the trader's home, refusing speech
with anyone but little Fawn Eyes, a sleighing party set out from Frayne
for a spin by moonlight along the frozen Platte. Wagon bodies had been
set on runners, and piled with hay. The young people from officers' row,
with the proper allowance of matrons and elders, were stowed therein,
and tucked in robes and furs, Esther Dade among them, gentle and
responsive as ever, yet still very silent. Field, in his deep mourning,
went nowhere. He seemed humiliated beyond words by his connection with
this most painful affair. Even the general failed to cheer and reassure
him. He blamed himself for everything and shrank even from his friends.
They saw the dim glow of the student lamp in his quarters, as they
jingled cheerily away. They were coming homeward, toward ten o'clock.
The moon was shining brilliantly along the bold heights of the southern
bank, and, insensibly, chat and laughter gradually ceased as they came
again in sight of the twinkling lights of Frayne, and glanced aloft at a
new-made scaffolding, standing black against the sky at the crest of
Fetterman Bluff.
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