For the last three weeks
he had haunted its ante-rooms and audience-chambers, in the vain hope
of righting himself before his superiors, who were content, without
formulating charges against him, to keep him in this disgrace of
inaction and the anxiety of suspense. Unable to ascertain the details
of the accusation, and conscious of his own secret, he was debarred
the last resort of demanding a court-martial, which he knew could only
exonerate him by the exposure of the guilt of his wife, whom he still
hoped had safely escaped. His division commander, in active operations
in the field, had no time to help him at Washington. Elbowed aside by
greedy contractors, forestalled by selfish politicians, and disdaining
the ordinary method of influence, he had no friend to turn to. In his
few years of campaigning he had lost his instinct of diplomacy, without
acquiring a soldier's bluntness.
The nearly level rays of the sun forced him at last to turn aside into
one of the openings of a large building--a famous caravansary of that
hotel-haunted capital, and he presently found himself in the
luxurious bar-room, fragrant with mint, and cool with ice-slabs piled
symmetrically on its marble counters.
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