At all events he thought she ought not to be coming into the stockade on such an errand.
"Lieutenant Beverley is absent acting under my orders he said, with perfect respectfulness, yet in a tone suggesting military finality.

He meant to set an indefinite yet effective rebuke in his words.
"Absent ?" she echoed.

"Gone?
You sent him away to be killed! You had no right--you--" "Miss Roussillon," said Clark, becoming almost stern, "you had better go home and stay there; young girls oughtn't to run around hunting men in places like this." His blunt severity of speech was accompanied by a slight frown and a gesture of impatience.
Alice's face blazed red to the roots of her sunny hair; the color ebbed, giving place to a pallor like death.

She began to tremble, and her lips quivered pitifully, but she braced herself and tried to force back the choking sensation in her throat.
"You must not misconstrue my words," Clark quickly added; "I simply mean that men will not rightly understand you.

They will form impressions very harmful to you.