"Captain Baynell must have had some reason to think you would marry him, or he would not have asked you. You rejected him one evening. The next morning he arrested Lieutenant Roscoe, who had been in hiding in the house,--was there some understanding between you and Captain Baynell,--had he earlier forborne this arrest in the expectation of your consent, and was the arrest made in revenge on a rival whom he fancied a successful suitor?" She looked at the judge-advocate with a horrified amazement eloquent on her face. "No! No! Oh," she cried in a poignant voice, "if you knew Captain Baynell, you could not, you would not, advance such implications against him,--who is the very soul of honor." The judge-advocate was again for an instant out of countenance. "You thought so little of him yourself as to reject his addresses," he said by way of recovering himself. She was absorbed in the importance of the crisis. She did not realize the effect of her words until after she had uttered them. "I did not appreciate his character then," she said simply. Once more there was an interval of tense and significant silence. Baynell, suddenly pale to the lips, lifted startled eyes as if he sought to assure himself that he had heard aright. Then he bent his gaze on the paper in his hand. Mrs. Gwynn, tremulous with excitement, appreciated a moment later the inadvertent and personal admission, and a burning flush sprang into her cheeks. The judge-advocate took instant advantage of her loss of poise. "I don't know what you mean by that--that you would not reject him again? Will you explain?" he read his question with a twinkling eye that nettled and harassed her. A member of the court-martial objected to the interrogation as "frivolous and unnecessary," and therefore it was not addressed to the witness. A pause ensued. The brevet brigadier cleared his throat. "Have you concluded this line of investigation?" he said to the judge-advocate, for the prosecution was obviously breaking down. "I believe we are about through," said the judge-advocate, vacuously, looking at a list in his hand, "that is"--to the accused--"if you have no questions to put in reëxamination." And as Mrs. Gwynn was permitted to depart from the room, he still busied himself with his list. "Three names, yet. These are the children, sir."