four
o'clock
She expected a proper amount of womanly horror , incredulity , and indignation ; but she was totally unprepared for the outburst that followed . Nina was transformed into a tragedy queen on the instant , and poor , simple-hearted , foolish Fanny Sutton was almost scared out of her small wits by the fire of denunciation and fury with which her story was greeted . She came home with white , frightened face and hunted up Cub and told him that she had been telling Nina some of the queer things the ladies had been saying about Mr. Jerrold , and Nina almost tore her to pieces , and could he go right out to the fort to see Mr. Jerrold ? Nina wanted to send a note at once ; and if he could n't go she had made her promise that she would get somebody to go instantly and to come back and let her know before four o'clock . Cub was always glad of an excuse to go out to the fort , but a coldness had sprung up between him and Jerrold . He had heard the ugly rumors in that mysterious way in which all such things are heard , and , while his shallow pate could not quite conceive of such a monstrous scandal and he did not believe half he heard , he sagely felt that in the presence of so much smoke there was surely some fire , and avoided the man from whom he had been inseparable . Of course he had not spoken to him on the subject , and , singularly enough , this was the case with all the officers at the post except Armitage and the commander .