Under Fire Part 32

For a brief time after their return from the cantonment Mrs. Davies and her new friend, Mrs. Plodder, had kept house together. In those days when so many of our officers were almost constantly in the field, it became quite the thing for some of the ladies left at the garrisons to club together, share expenses, and thereby economize. Old No. 12 was still at Mira's service, but she couldn't bear the house, she said, and so the ladies moved their furniture into an abandoned bachelor den next to Flight's, and for a few days all went merrily. Then there came a servants' squabble, and their cook differed with Mrs. Flight's maid-of-all-work, and, refusing arbitration, was impudent to her employers. Mrs. Plodder was an Amazon in whom there was no weakness. She discharged the cook and sent her back to Braska. Then they "messed" with Mrs. Flight, and about this time the hops began and the visits from town and the drives, and Mrs. Plodder presently conceived it to be her duty to remonstrate with Mira, who wept and stormed, and after a time, as Willett's visits began to grow frequent, Mrs. Plodder said she would not remain under the same roof with Mira, and moved over and kept house with Mrs. Darling. The Cranston household had gone East some time before this, and, as Mira could not bear the chaplain's worthy wife, and Mrs.

Stone had become estranged, and Mrs. Darling, with Mrs. Plodder, had decided that she was openly encouraging Mr. Willett's devotions and told her so, and as Mrs. Leonard held aloof from them, one and all, it must be admitted that the poor brainless child was restricted in her choice of friends and intimates. Davies had had but brief time in which to give her instructions, and there is no use in setting forth their purport. He asked Mrs. Cranston, if a possible thing, to give his wife the benefit of her experience and aid her in any way Mira might need, and Margaret warmly a.s.sured him that she was ready at any time and glad to be of any and every service to Mrs. Davies, but even in so saying she felt well a.s.sured that there was little hope of being of use. What made the matter worse was that this summer Congress adjourned without making provision for the pay of the army, even while expecting it to perform rather more than its customary functions; but here Cranston stepped in and insisted on placing at Mrs. Davies's disposal a certain sum in Courtenay's bank at Braska. Davies could return it when Uncle Sam resumed payment, and so Mira had been provided with a check-book and taught its use. She was, at least, to have no financial anxieties. The regiment had to remain long in the field and the Cranstons went home, as Davies expected and had advised that Mira go with them to Chicago. Even if her people could not make her welcome at Urbana, she could board there with former friends in perfect comfort, and be ready to rejoin him by and by. Many and many an army wife and mother had similarly to live a Bedouin life that summer.

One cavalry regiment, the --th, for instance, was scattered from Cheyenne to Chicago, facing riotous mobs one month and chasing Indians all over the upper Yellowstone the next. One thing Davies firmly yet gently strove to impress upon Mira,--that her intimates at Scott were not at all the women with whom a poor and debt-burdened officer's wife should foregather. He begged her to be guided by Mrs. Cranston and Mrs.

Leonard, and wrote a brief line to the chaplain, commending Mira to his care, and then he had to go.

But once back at Scott, where she could sport the lovely toilets with which her hopeful aunt had supplied her, Mira went the way of the empty-headed. Admiration, adulation were to her as the breath of life.

So long as she was perfectly innocent of wrong intent how could people--how dare people rebuke her? She told Willett the horrid things Mrs. Darling, Mrs. Plodder, and Mrs. Stone were reported to have said, and he replied that it was all because they envied her her beauty and were jealous of the attentions she won. She almost told him what the chaplain said, but that sent the burning blushes to her forehead, yet she dreaded what the old soldier of the cross might have written to her husband. She knew he would surely condemn the renewal of her a.s.sociation with Mr. Willett, but so long as he wasn't there to say so, and so long as she intended the a.s.sociation to be purely platonic, as a rebuke to all who had rebuked her, she proposed to a.s.sume that no objection existed.

The news that he had been sent for and was coming in as a witness in Captain Devers's court startled her inexpressibly, despite her conscious rect.i.tude. She told Willett that very evening, as they were driving slowly among the willow-wooded islands, and he looked imploringly into her eyes, and Mrs. Flight and Mr. Burtis on the back seat could see that he was talking eagerly, earnestly, pleadingly, and that her eyes were downcast, her cheeks aflame, and still they did not take alarm. "She's too much in love with herself and her own good looks ever to do that foolish thing," said Mrs. Flight to those who asked her why she didn't warn her. Willett himself, so Burtis afterwards declared, had said in answer to some friendly words of remonstrance on the Sunday night preceding the meeting of the court, that the girl was as heartless and cold as a stone. No one need worry on her account. It was plain to Burtis that the young fellow was well-nigh insane about her, and he had sent a letter ten days before to Langston urging him to come and look after his kinsman; but Langston was far away at the time and never knew that Willett had quit the sea-sh.o.r.e and gone back to the charmer in mid-continent,--never knew, indeed no one ever knew until too late, that it was she herself who baited the line that drew him there.

There was a gathering at the post on Tuesday evening and all the few society men were out from Braska. The ladies, in their summer toilets, sat on the verandas and told one another and their visitors from town how dreadful it was to be so long bereft of their husbands and protectors, and Mrs. Flight and Mrs. Darling said they wished with all their hearts the court had called some witnesses from the infantry.

Surely they knew as much about the matter as some of the cavalry who had been summoned. There was Mrs. Davies who could expect her husband within the week, while it might be months before they set eyes on theirs. They seemed to take comfort in harping on this theme for Willett's benefit, He sat near Mira's side, as she reclined languidly in her wicker chair, his eyes glowing, his hands and lips twitching at times, listening and occasionally addressing low-toned, eager words to her. "Mr. Davies will have finished his testimony by Thursday at the latest," said Mrs.

Flight, decisively; "I heard Mrs. Leonard say so to the chaplain to-day," and here she glanced meaningly at Mira; "so what's to prevent his being here early Friday morning? I know I'd let no gra.s.s grow under my feet."

And Mira could only say she surely hoped so, but she couldn't tell. The last letter from him was away up near the mouth of Powder River somewhere, and he thought then they mightn't be home before November; but she was plainly unwilling to discuss the matter, and with evident relief took Willett's arm when the musicians presently were heard tuning up at the hop-room.

But it was noticed then how flushed and excited she looked, how quickly she seemed to tire of the dance and went out on the veranda for cooler air, and presently they were missed and were gone from the room the rest of the evening, so that the hop broke up early, and the anxious women hurrying homeward were incensed to find her in a dark, vine-covered corner of the veranda of the quarters, Willett in close attendance. "I didn't feel like dancing," was her sole explanation. "I begged Mr.

Willett to go back to you, but he wouldn't." And Burtis, later, had to shout angrily for him before he could get him into the wagon and off for town.

She slept that night in the room adjoining Mrs. Flight's, and slept but little, said that lady later. She seemed ablaze with nervous excitement and utterly unlike her usual self,--placid and satisfied except when subjected to reproof. She had gone thither right after the departure of the men and shut her would-be mentor out. Mrs. Flight afterwards declared she saw the coming catastrophe and was determined to avert it if a possible thing, but Mira said she had a dreadful headache and wouldn't talk. Mrs. Flight, considering that she had a duty to perform, began, however, from outside. The result was a quarrel and Mira's announcement from behind the door that she would not speak to Mrs.

Flight again. When Wednesday came she refused to leave her room. It had been arranged that three of the ladies were to drive to town with the sole cavalier left at the post, a lieutenant of the Fortieth, and Mira was one of them, but they supposed she had abandoned the plan. To the surprise of everybody she appeared, satchel in hand, arrayed in sober travelling garb, and asked the driver of the ambulance to help their servant bring out her trunk, and took her seat in the Concord while it was being tossed into the boot. It was Mrs. Darling who ventured to ask what it meant, and Mira calmly explained. She had determined to go and meet her husband in Omaha. They were amazed, yet what could they do or say? It was after luncheon-time and she merely urged that they should drive rapidly so as to get her to the bank before it closed, and then she left them, saying she would remain at the hotel at the station until her train arrived. It was due soon after midnight.

Before returning to the post the others, Mrs. Darling and Mrs. Plodder, called upon Mira at the hotel, for they were oppressed with strange fears. They strove to remonstrate with her, pointed out that Mr. Davies would be with her in three days. Mira said it might not be for a week.

Well, wasn't it unusual for a lady to be going alone? Not at all. She would sleep all the evening in her room, and the landlord would place her in charge of the conductor. Surely Mrs. Plodder had come from Omaha alone. That was different, said Mrs. Plodder, in rueful recognition of the fact that a plain woman is exempted from annoyances which a beauty has to suffer, yet would suffer indefinitely rather than be plain. "But, _dear_ Mrs. Davies, is it not very expensive?" said Mrs. Darling. "Not when I have pa.s.ses all the way to Chicago," said Mira. So they had to return to the fort at dusk, though Mrs. Plodder did suggest staying all night and seeing her off. They had not set eyes on Willett. They both entertained, though neither expressed, a hope that he was not to be of the party. They asked for Willett casually when they met Mr. Burtis.

Burtis said with perfect truth that he was out at the ranch, that he had hoped to be here to meet the ladies, but was called out by urgent business.

It was dark, and they were tired, hungry, and worried when they got back to the post, and the lieutenant on escort found the ladies strangely preoccupied and silent. The first thing on reaching home was to go in search of the chaplain. As a devoted friend of Mr. Davies he should be informed of this odd freak of Mira's, and, if there were any grounds for their fears, there was still time to avert what would bring such awful scandal about their social circle. They a.s.sumed that they were coming back with sensational news, forgetful of the fact that garrison servants helped pack Mira's trunk, and garrison eyes had seen it start with her for town. The chaplain's wife knew all about it before two o'clock, and the chaplain would have known it, too, had he not been long miles away at the death-bed of an old soldier turned cow-boy. Not until after the east-bound train was whistling far down the valley and the dawn was in the sky did an inkling reach him. Somebody said he thought the least Mr.

Willett could have done was to come over and see how his best "puncher"

was getting on, and somebody else replied, in low tone, that any one could see Willett had no thoughts for anything or anybody outside of Fort Scott, whereupon somebody Number 1 replied that Willett had been at his "shack" most of the afternoon, packing some things and burning others, and had taken the midnight train at Duncan Switch, ten miles west of Braska.

And even while the news of his going was bringing strange comfort to the good old man, who rejoiced that this wolf in the sheepfold was even temporarily out of the way, there came a messenger from the distant post and a packet was handed in for him. Some letters and a note from his wife.

"Expecting you home during the evening, I did not send these, but they may be important. Mrs. Davies suddenly made up her mind to go to Omaha this afternoon, and was to take the night train at Braska." Here the other letters dropped to the floor, and the reader's eyes filled with sudden consternation and dismay. Not until his ambulance had been hitched and brought to the door did he cease his restless pacing to and fro. Kneeling a brief moment at the bedside of the unconscious and fast-failing sufferer, he bade his fellows hurried adieu and drove with speed to town, a long eight miles. It was then broad daylight, but he stirred up the sleepy telegraph operator and asked about wiring after the train. "Grand Island's the place to catch 'em," said the operator.

"They breakfast there at seven." And the chaplain flushed and glanced keenly at the man. Why should he speak of catching anybody or anything?

Was all the valley already aware of this shameful flight? The hotel stood not a stone's throw away. There must be no unnecessary scandal about this business. He needed to see the proprietor, and roused him, too. Boniface came down anything but smiling, yet thawed a trifle at sight of the man whom all Nebraska seemed to know and swear by.

Certainly, Mrs. Davies spent the evening at the hotel in her room, and he put her aboard the sleeper at 12.20, the moment the train came in. He had wired to p.a.w.nee and secured her section and checked her trunk to Omaha. She had her tickets, she said. Was Mr. Davies aboard or--anybody else to meet her? Not that the landlord knew of. The porter showed her in and said her section was ready. Everybody else was sound asleep, apparently, but there were some soldiers in the forward cars. Some of them got out and had a cup of coffee at the stand, and "piled aboard as she pulled out." They had a prisoner, a deserter, in manacles. Then the chaplain wired to Duncan Switch, and the answer came that Mr. Willett left there, bound for Omaha, at midnight, and then he wired the conductor of the train at Grand Island, and later to Leonard at Omaha, then sat him down to wait and watch and pray.

The sleeping-car, said the conductor afterwards, was fuller than usual that night. Some officers got aboard at Rock Springs, and sat up quite late, chatting with others who had boarded them at b.u.t.te and p.a.w.nee.

There were five officers in all. One of them, who had not taken a berth, went forward about ten o'clock and made a "roost" in the day car. The conductor heard the others talking about it, and how the lieutenant would never spend an unnecessary cent, and some of them thought he was foolish, and others said he was right, and they respected him for it.

These gentlemen slept late, saying they would rather breakfast after they got to Omaha. The lady who came aboard at Braska was the first one up in the morning. She was astir with the sun, and came back from the dressing-room as soon as the porter had made up her section, looking as fresh and fair as the day. Presently a gentleman joined her,--a man he had often seen on the road,--who travelled, as most cattlemen did in those days, with a pa.s.s, and who boarded them at Duncan Switch, and went at once to his berth. He seemed very much surprised to meet the lady, but sat down and talked with her until we whistled for Grand Island, and there, said the conductor, "as I bustled off the train, the operator handed me a despatch just at same minute that the brakeman came to tell me we had a cracked wheel on the smoker. One look at the wheel told me that the car must be left behind, so I ordered out the pa.s.sengers while another car was being put on."

But the telegram took more than one look. It puzzled him, said the conductor. It was sent by the chaplain, a man he knew well, and in brief words it said, "The lady in Section 7 is the wife of Lieutenant Davies, Eleventh Cavalry. She needs escort to Omaha, where Lieutenant Leonard will meet her. If any army officer is aboard, show him this and introduce him. She should not leave the train."

"Now, there were officers on the car, but they were not yet up,"

continued the official. "Of course I supposed at once that she must be out of her mind, and that was the trouble. Just at that moment I caught sight of the young lieutenant who had spent the night in the forward car. He was a tall, slender fellow, with thick, close-cropped brown beard and clear blue eyes, and he had got that poor devil of a prisoner and his guard together, and was fetching them back along the track to the coffee-stand that happened to be right opposite where the sleeper stopped. 'Will you read this, and see if you know what to make of it?'

said I, handing him the despatch, and then, as he stopped to read, my brakeman asked me some question, and I turned around to answer, and there, just stepping off the Pullman, was Mr. Willett, looking back and giving his hand to the lady herself. The handcuffed prisoner was just opposite them at the moment, between two soldiers, and then the next thing I knew I heard an awful scream, and the lady had covered her face with her hands and fallen back on the steps, right at the feet of an officer who was just coming out, and the prisoner thought he saw a chance, perhaps, and gave a spring and dove like a rat under the car, the guard clumsily following, and Mr. Willett stared about him one instant, with a face that turned the color of chalk, then he too gave a sort of stifled exclamation, 'My G.o.d!' and sprang up the steps and over the platform of the day-car and was out of sight in the flash of an eye.

We heard shouts of 'Halt, halt, or we fire!' from the guards on the other side of the car, and then two quick shots a little distance away, and another wail or cry from the lady, and then I felt some one brush by me, and the lieutenant sprang to her side, lifted her in his arms as he reached the steps, and carried her, without a word, into the car by an open window, where she cowered and sobbed and s.h.i.+vered and moaned, and he all the time bending over and striving to soothe and calm her."

But when that train drew up at the station at Omaha an ambulance received the bleeding, pain-distorted form of the prisoner Howard, shot through the leg in his mad effort to escape. Leonard and Truman, scanning every face as the pa.s.sengers stepped off the cars, waved their hands in greeting to the knot of officers on the sleeper platform, and Leonard sprang aboard, inquiry in his snapping black eyes. They made way silently for him to enter, and then he knew not whether to believe his senses.

"Leonard," said Davies, quietly, "my wife came on to surprise me at Omaha, not expecting me this way. I supposed she'd already come in with the Cranstons. She was hardly well enough for the journey. Will you kindly order a carriage?"

She was driven away in the very dust of the ambulance that was trundling one poor wounded fellow to hospital, the conductor lamenting that a woman so young and lovely should be thus afflicted. No one else aboard that train could dream from Davies's words or manner that any other explanation for her coming existed than that she was simply hastening to Omaha to meet him.

But no claimant appeared for the handsome leather bag and hat-box and umbrella left in Section 10.

A few days later when the witnesses were scattering back to their stations, or going on brief leaves of absence before so doing, Cranston took his soldierly-looking corporal, the recruit of the previous year, to gladden the eyes of the mother so eagerly awaiting him in Chicago; but before starting they had been summoned to the hospital where Howard lay, where "Brannan" formally, though still with sorrow and reluctance, identified him as Powlett. Leonard was there with the leather writing-case and its contents, at sight of which Brannan's last barrier of compunction fell, and Davies stood by the bedside, looking pale, haggard, and ten years older, and Colonel Rand, the inspector of the department, and another sad-faced fellow, Langston. And Archer was there, and Hastings, when Sergeant Haney's formal confession was read.

There was little sensation over it. Everybody seemed to know just about what it would be. He said nothing to directly accuse Captain Devers of conspiracy, but Haney had been his first sergeant for five years, and the devious ways of his troop commander had necessitated the existence of a right bower who could swear straight and strong to what the captain thought should be established. They got to know each other thoroughly, and each lived in mortal dread of some betrayal on the other's part.

There was a squad of six or eight men in the troop which practically "ran things," and Haney was its head. For years these men had triumphed over all efforts to break their line, just as Devers had baffled those which would have cornered him, but they could see plainly that the captain was nearing the end of his "tether," and his downfall meant theirs. The catastrophe of Antelope Springs brought matters to a climax.

Half the men in the troop heard Major Warren's orders to Devers, and all knew he had slighted if not disobeyed them. This, if proved, meant ruin to the ring, and the plan to s.h.i.+ft the blame on Davies's shoulders,--to make the investigating officer believe the troop had marched right down along the ridge within supporting distance, and that Davies had become terror-stricken and had hidden instead of instantly communicating with his captain, was the result. Devers, indeed, boldly announced that as his theory and explanation of the whole affair, and Haney, Finucane, Boyd, and the intelligent Howard were there ready to swear to it and save the captain the trouble. So long as Davies and McGrath never turned up to combat the accusation all would go well. The captain didn't tell them in so many words they must swear to the ridge trail as the one they pursued the evening of the tragedy, but he did not oppose it. He asked them for their recollection of the matter and made his map, as did Mr.

Archer his report, accordingly.

Then when it was found that Recruit Brannan as well as certain old hands resented the idea of Mr. Davies being held accountable, they had to muzzle him. Brannan declared he would warn the lieutenant the moment he returned to the troop, so they made up their minds that he must be discredited, if not ruined. Howard said that there was in his writing-case a sealed packet that contained evidence that would send him to State's prison and "kill" him in the lieutenant's eyes; and this, indeed, was no idle threat, for Powlett, fearing detection if he either sold or kept the watch he had torn from Davies's pocket after the cowardly a.s.sault, had sealed it in one package and tied Mira's gus.h.i.+ng letters in another, and long before had induced the unsuspecting boy to promise to keep and guard them for him as a sacred trust. Only as a last resort, said Haney, were they to exhibit the proofs of Brannan's apparent criminality. Meantime, by sending him to the agency or tempting him with liquor they hoped to keep him harmless.

But Howard soon began striking for leaders.h.i.+p. He held the secrets of his captain and two of his sergeants and was safely out of the troubles that involved him at home. (He had been wise enough to confide these to no one and to make poor Brannan swear to preserve his secret.) He was beginning to hear from relations and receive money from them. He began to put on airs over everybody, captain and all, and though Haney hated, and was jealous of his influence, he dared not offend him. They knew it was he who was seen prowling about Davies's quarters, but they could not account for it, and strove to make it appear that Brannan was the culprit. And then he began "sparking" Robideau's daughter in town, and had become moody, nervous, excitable; talked about mysterious spies and trailers, and then, suddenly and unaccountably, deserted after a spree in Braska that had cost him much money,--after a mad sc.r.a.pe in which he had terrified Mrs. Davies and thrashed Mr. Willett. Who he was or what he was Sergeant Haney didn't know, but that he was a villain with a history and a capacity for further devilment was certain. Haney had still more to tell. The captain had sent for him and told him of the adjutant's being in conference with the chaplain and Mr. Davies, and he felt sure it was about the Antelope Springs matter. He was sure they had his map, the one on which Archer based his report, and that this would some day be brought up in evidence against him. It was locked for the night in the second drawer of the adjutant's desk, said he, and Haney understood. The drawer was chiselled that night and the map and papers taken, but not until the robbery was known all over the post did the captain see the map and see that it wasn't his original at all, but simply a copy. Except for information obtained in the memoranda, they had robbed the desk to no purpose.

Howard was gone before this, but there was Brannan's writing-case in Haney's possession, why not throw further suspicion upon him? and so there were the papers hidden in the hopes of further d.a.m.ning him should he ever appear as a witness against them. For all this and much more the poor dying sinner craved forgiveness, and, hearing promptly of the confession, through Finucane, who had fled with horse, equipments, and everything, Howard, in hiding and in want at b.u.t.te, wired to his captain, hoping to extract more money, for Devers had been a thrifty, and was regarded a wealthy, man.

And then when this confession had been made known to the wounded sufferer the chaplain spoke. "You see the case that is building up against you, Powlett, and just as soon as you are able to sit or stand the court will meet for your trial. You have a.s.sault with intent to kill, at Bluff Siding if not at Urbana, highway robbery, theft, desertion, conspiracy, and kindred crimes to answer for; would it not be infinitely better that you should confess fully and at once? Even the men whom you have so bitterly wronged join in no clamor against--they would even spare--you."

But Powlett was a villain game, and answered only with a sneer. It was that packet of Mira's letters handed to Davies with his father's watch that supplemented Brannan's story and told him all. Mira could not live without adorers, could not resist the longing to flaunt her victims in the faces of other girls, and Powlett was a conquest indeed until his rascality at the inst.i.tute became known. Then he had to flee, but such was his infatuation that he returned in hopes of seeing her. She did meet him in secret, for it was sweet to see his despair. She refused to meet him again, however, and then he charged her with faithlessness and demanded to be told the truth about Davies. If that fellow reappeared as her lover he swore to kill him, and then she bade him go and never see her more, with the result already known. And at Bluff Siding in the crowd and confusion he might have killed Davies but for Brannan's watchful eye and warding hand. That was the last pound that broke the back of Brannan's feeling of friends.h.i.+p and grat.i.tude. He would no more of Powlett, yet remained true to his pledge of secrecy. Mira's dream of joy and triumph as an army bride met its first rude shock when, under her window at Scott, she heard stealthy footsteps and the soft, low whistling of a familiar air, the signal with which he used to summon her to their trysting-place at home. The mad fool thought either to recover his ascendency over her or revenge himself by tormenting, and then, when her husband was sent to the agency and he saw opportunity of meeting and terrorizing her, he was infuriated with new jealousy by her flirtation with Willett. Even there at Scott he must have written and made further threats, for the freshest and newest of the precious collection of her letters found in "Brannan's" case referred to something of the kind.

Driven to desperation, she wrote that she would expose him to her husband and Captain Cranston if he again presumed to address her, and finally wrote this last:

"My husband will be here within forty-eight hours and I have fully resolved to confess all to him: that you, who made the cowardly a.s.sault and left him for dead at Urbana, and have been guilty of such abominable crimes, are here, in this garrison, a soldier in his troop. If you remain it is at your peril. On my knees I swear it." And with this melodramatic conclusion Mira had really frightened him. He had sense enough to know that, with all the other complications in which he was involved, this exposure was more than he could stand. He made other efforts to see and plead with her, but they were fruitless, and his own melodramatic _coup_,--his last appearance, as he supposed, before her eyes, then followed. After that, desertion.

Davies read but two of these missives, the first and the last. He restored them to her without a word. She was lying in the seclusion of her shaded room at the hotel when he returned from the hospital, the chaplain with him. They spoke few words together on the way, and parted on the corridor, near her door, for there Davies turned and faced his friend.

"And you must go back to Scott to-night, sir?"

"Yes." The chaplain was still grasping his hand and looking into the sad, stern face with anxiety and tenderness and unspoken longing in his eyes. "I will see to all you have charged me with." He placed his other hand upon the broad shoulder before him. "My son, though I never met, I knew, your father, and that told me what to look for in you." And now the rich, deep voice was tremulous, and the kind old eyes were dim with unshed tears. "The hand of the Lord has been laid in heaviness upon you, but 'those whom He loveth He chasteneth.' Even could I lift the burden of your sorrow as easily as I raise this hand, I should falter, because, as I believe in G.o.d, so do I believe that through trial even such as this your light shall yet s.h.i.+ne before men so pure and strong that men themselves shall be purer and stronger because of it."

There was a moment's pause. Davies stood with bowed head. Cranston, coming into the hall-way, stopped at sight of them and tiptoed back, motioning to others to wait. Then the chaplain spoke again,--

"You will write--as soon as--you have decided?"

"I have decided," was the low, calm answer.

"And----?"

"Yes, we go to-night. She is not too ill to move, and once at Urbana--no one need know."

"Do you mean----?" began the chaplain.

"I mean," said Davies, looking calmly and with dry, tired eyes into the chaplain's face, "that she is utterly alone in the world,--homeless, friendless. Who knows but that her story may be true, despite indications? What would be her fate if I were to fail her now? It was 'for better, for worse,' chaplain. I have tried to do my duty in the past. G.o.d help me to do it to the end."

The tears were running down the old clergyman's face when, around the corner, he came suddenly on Cranston and his friends, and they seemed to understand.