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and most estimable gentleman as a suitor for her hand was a bitter, bitter disappointment; but that she should have refused Roswell Holmes, with all his advantages, because of Randall McLean--with what?--was

more than he could bear.

Just as she was hurrying to her room, still weeping, he interposed.

"My little Nell!--my precious!" he cried, in tenderest tones, as he folded her in his arms. "Is it so hopeless

as this? Is it possible that my little daughter's heart has been stolen away--right under my eyes--and I never saw it?"

For an answer she only clung to him, hiding her bonny face, weeping the more

violently. Speak she could not.

"Nell! Nellie!" he pleaded, "try and tell me, dear. You don't know what it means to me! You don't know what fears your silence causes me! My child--tell me--that it isn't

Mr. McLean."

No answer--only closer nestling; only added tears.

"Nell, my own little one! If you knew with what awful dread I waited! If you knew what this meant to me--to you--to us all! Speak to me,

daughter. Tell me it isn't that unhappy young man."

And now, startled, shocked, she lifts her brimming eyes in wonderment to her father's face, gazing at him through the mist of tears.

"Why unhappy?" she

almost gasps. "Why--why not Mr. McLean, papa?"

For a moment Bayard stands as though stunned. Then slowly relaxes the clasp of his arms and turns drearily away, covering his face with his hands.

"My God!"

he moans. "This is retribution, this is punishment! Blinder than the veriest mole have I been through it all. Nellie!" he cries, turning suddenly toward her again as she stands there trembling at his

melodramatic misery. "There is no engagement! There has been nothing said, has there? Tell me!"

"Not a word,--from me," she whispers low. "He sent me a little note yesterday through Jeannie. Indeed, you

can see it, papa; but I have not answered. It doesn't ask anything."

"Then promise me no word shall go, my child! Promise me! I cannot tell you why just yet, but he is not the man to whom I could ever

consent to give you. My child! my child! his name is clouded; his honor is tarnished; he stands accused of crime. Nellie--my God! you must hear it sooner or later."

But now she draws away from him and

leans upon the balusters, looking into his face as though she doubted his sanity.

"Father!" she slowly speaks at length, "I could no more believe such a thing of him--than I could of you."

A quick,

springy step is suddenly heard on the wooden walk without, the rattle of an infantry sword against the steps, an imperative rat-tat-tat at the door. Elinor speeds away to hide her flushed cheeks and tearful

eyes in the solitude of her room. Bayard quickly composes his features to their conventional calm and recedes to the gloom of the library. Robert majestically stalks through the hall and opens the door.

"Dr. Bayard in?" asks the brusque voice of the adjutant. "Ah, doctor," continues that officer, marching straightway into the den, "Major Miller is at the gate and on his way to visit Mr. McLean. He begs that

you will be present at the interview, as it is on a matter of much importance."

"Very well, Mr. Adjutant," answers Bayard, gravely, as though divining the solemn import of their errand. "I am at your

service at once."

XVII.

An odd despatch was that which went by the single wire of the military telegraph line to Fort Fetterman late that night. It was known that a small escort would leave that point

early in the morning, going through with a staff-officer en route to join the field column now busily engaging the hostile Indians along the northern foot-hills of the Big Horn range. Major Miller asked the

commanding officer at Fetterman to hold back a brace of horsemen to await the arrival of a courier just leaving Laramie, and bearing an important and confidential letter to the general commanding the

department, who was with his troops in the field. It was over eighty miles by the river road; the night was dark and the skies overcast. There might be Indians along the route; there certainly were no

soldiers, for, with the exception of eight or ten men, all of Captain Terry's troop were with him scouting on the north side of the Platte and over near the Sioux reservations. All the same, a single

trooper, armed only with the revolver and unburdened by the usual blankets and field kit,--riding almost as light as a racer,--was to make the run and reach Fetterman the next afternoon.

This was the

result of the interview with Lieutenant McLean, a conference at which were present Major and Mrs. Miller, Dr. Bayard, and the adjutant. Why Mrs. Miller, the wife of the commanding officer, should have been

present in any capacity, it is not the province of the narrator to defend. She had been assiduously nursing and caring for the young officer in his weak and wounded condition. She had him where he could not

escape her shrewd and relentless questionings. She was enabled to tell him much that Hatton had told her and a few things she certainly thought he had and therefore said he had. She was further enabled to

tell him of the letters from Robinson and all they portended; of Mr. Holmes's loss and what she had seen in the mirror; of her own meeting with Miss Forrest in the darkness of the doctor's hall; of the

registered letters sent away when everybody knew Mrs. Forrest hadn't a penny except the captain's pay, and that she had openly and repeatedly announced that her sister-in-law had now come to be a burden,

too, having quarrelled with her relatives in the East. And so, little by little, she had drawn from McLean the story of Hatton's farewell words and the discovery of the card in the handkerchief. Then,

fortified with this intelligence, and firmly convinced that she could not be mistaken in the guilt of her Majesty of Bedlam, Mrs. Miller reopened the subject and prodded the major into immediate action. She

meant well. She intended no public exposure, no unnecessary disgrace. She merely wanted that Captain Forrest should come at once, compel his much-afflicted sister (for, of course, kleptomania was the sole

explanation) to make restitution, and then remove her to some safe retreat in the distant East. Miller decided to see McLean at once, taking his adjutant to jot down the statements made, and Dr. Bayard

because of his rank in the service and his professional connection with the officer in question. Mrs. Miller decided to be present because of McLean's great reluctance to tell what he knew and because she

conceived it her duty to prompt him; and this was the quartet that swooped down upon the poor fellow in his defenceless condition late that sunshiny afternoon. No wonder his recovery was delayed!

The most

stunned and bewildered man of the party while the painful interview was in progress was Dr. Bayard. He had gone in the confident expectation that McLean was to be confronted with the evidences of his guilt,

and offered the chance of immediate resignation. His patient was sufficiently removed from the danger-line to enable him to sustain the shock, and he had not interposed. It was too late, therefore, to put an

end to matters on that plea when to his horror-stricken ears was revealed the evidence against the woman who had so enthralled and piqued him. Miller led him away in a semi-dazed condition after the close of

the conference, and then at last the doctor's vehement emotions found tongue.

"And all this time you have been suspecting that poor young fellow!" said the major, with a touch of reproach in his voice.

There was silence an instant. The doctor stopped short and leaned against the fence in front of the adjutant's quarters, his face purpling with wrath and indignation, his lips twitching, his hands clinched.

Miller looked at him in amaze, and then came the outburst:

"Suspect him! By heaven, sir! What it was before is nothing to what I feel now! That in his depravity he should have stolen was bad enough; but

that now, to cover his tracks, he should accuse and defame a defenceless woman is infamy! Look at his story, and tell me could anything be more pitiful and mendacious? Her handkerchief was found in his

bureau the night of the robbery. Where is the handkerchief now? He burned it! He found a note on a card from her hidden in the handkerchief she had given Hatton to replace in the drawer. Where is the card?

He burned it! He 'purposely destroyed all evidence against her.' A sham Quixote! Who found her handkerchief in his bureau? Who saw the burning? Who put the handkerchief in the drawer? Who told him of her

confession? Who heard her beg that you should be delayed in your investigation? Who, in fact, is corroborating witness to everything and anything he alleges, but the man he believes, and I believe, you can

never reach again. Hatton is failing rapidly."

"How could he have heard that?" asked Miller, with mingled wrath and stupefaction in his face,--wrath at the doctor's contemptuous disregard of all other

opinions, and stupefaction at the suddenly presented view of the case.

"The attendant, sir, was down at the telegraph office when the news came in, and he had to tell McLean; the latter insisted on being

told the truth. Weeks fears blood-poisoning, and if that has set in nothing can save him. Then where will be your evidence against this most foully wronged lady?"

"Hush!" exclaimed Miller, quickly, with a

warning, sidelong glance toward Bedlam. "Come with me!" And, following his commander's look, the doctor saw, standing close together, leaning on the southern balustrade and gazing down upon them in evident

interest and equally evident surprise, Fanny Forrest and Mr. Roswell Holmes. Silently he turned and accompanied the major until he reached his own gateway, and then stopped.

"I presume there is nothing

further I can do just now, and, with your permission, sir, I will leave you. I want to think this all over."

"Do so, doctor. And, when you are ready, come and see me. Let me only say this to you: You have

hardly known McLean at all. We have known him nearly five years, and he has ever been in our eyes the soul of honor and truth."

"The soul of honor and truth, sir, would not be writing love-letters and

destroying the peace of mind of a young and innocent girl when all he has to offer her is a millstone of debt and a tarnished name." And with this parting-shot the doctor majestically turned away.

"So

that's where the shoe pinches!" thought Miller, as he entered his quarters, where presently he was joined by his excited wife.

"He isn't half as prostrated as you thought he'd be," she instantly exclaimed,

as she entered the room. "Of course it wouldn't be Mac if he were not greatly distressed, but I have promised him that not a word shall leak out until Captain Forrest gets here, and that then he is to see

him himself. Isn't it dreadful about Mr. Hatton? Can nothing be done?"

"I am to see Bayard again by and by. This affair has completely unstrung him, for he is evidently deeply smitten; I never dreamed it

had gone so far. Now that letter must be written to the general, and I am going to the office. You must not know a thing about it, or about this affair. Of course you will be besieged with questions." And so

the major sallied forth.

Darkness was settling down. The sunset-gun had been fired just as they left McLean's. By this time the doctor should be entertaining his guest at dinner, and Miller wondered how

even "Chesterfield" would rally to the occasion and preserve his suavity and courtliness after the shock of the last hour. But Miller had no idea that it was the last of three shocks that had assailed him in

quick succession and with increasing severity that very day, and never dreamed of the gulf of distress in which poor Bayard was plunged. He had gone at once to his library and thrown himself in the easy-

chair in an attitude of profound dejection, barely paying attention when Chloe entered to say that Miss Nellie begged to be excused from coming down to dinner, as she felt too ill. Then Robert entered to ask

should he serve dinner or wait until Mr. Holmes came in. "Wait!" said Bayard, bluntly. But five minutes passed; the dinner would be overdone; so Robert slipped out in search of the truant, and Miller saw him

going over to Bedlam. But the upper gallery was empty; Mr. Holmes and Miss Forrest had disappeared; the adjutant came striding up from the guard-house, and together the two officers turned away.

"Orderly,"

said the major, to the attendant soldier following at his heels, "find Sergeant Freeman, who is in charge of the cavalry detachment, and tell him I want him at once. Then go and get your supper."

Meantime,

realizing that the dinner-hour was at hand, and knowing the punctilious ideas of his host, Mr. Holmes had somewhat abruptly bidden adieu to the young lady with whom he had been in such interesting

conversation. "I must see you again about Hatton if possible, and just as soon as I have found out what this means. If all the four were together at McLean's room the mischief is probably done, but I'll see

him at once unless it be forbidden." He was turning away without more words, when something in her deep, dark eyes seemed to detain him. He held forth his hand.

"Miss Forrest, I cannot tell you how I

appreciate the honor you have done me in this confidence. It may be the means of my making more than one man happy. One word, where is Celestine now?"

"She should be in the dining-room, setting the table

for tea. Good-by, then, till tattoo. See him if you can."

"Indeed I will," he answered, and bowing over the slender, richly-jewelled hand she so frankly placed in his, he slowly released it, and turned

away.

"In the dining-room, is she?" muttered Holmes to himself, as he ran lightly through the hall and down the stairs. "If that was not Miss Celestine I saw this moment scurrying in from the direction of

the wood-piles out yonder, I'm vastly mistaken, and she was talking with a soldier there. I saw the glint of the sunset on the brasses of his forage-cap. I thought they all had to be at retreat roll-call,