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and changed their apprehension into wonderment and secret joy by the extreme--almost oppressive--courtesy of manner to his unbidden guest.

"It was just as though he was trying to make amends for

something," said Miss Bruce, in telling of it afterward. Be that as it may, it is certain that after urging McLean to take a good rest where he was and to come again and "sun himself" on their piazza, and

being unaccountably cordial in his monologue (for the younger officer hardly knew how to express himself under the circumstances), the doctor finally vanished. Jeannie Bruce was so utterly "taken aback" by

it all that for some minutes she totally forgot her part in the little drama. Then, suddenly recalling the r鬺e she was to play, despite the appeal and protest and dismay in Elinor's pleading eyes, Miss

Bruce, too, sped away and the two were left alone. From the south end of the gallery at Bedlam Miss Forrest looked smilingly upon the scene and would fain have rewarded Bonnie Jean by blowing a kiss to her,

but Jeannie's eyes were focussed on a little party of horsemen just dismounting in front of the commanding officer's. They might bring news from the cantonment,--perhaps a little note from her own particular

hero, Mr. Hatton.

Nearing them she recognized the leader as a sergeant of Captain Terry's troop, and knew well from the trim appearance of the men and their smooth-shaven cheeks and chins that they were

just setting forth, not just returning from the field. The adjutant came hurrying down the steps of the major's quarters just as she reached the gate, and raised his forage-cap at sight of her.

"You can

start at once, sergeant," she heard him say. "Now remember: to-morrow evening will be time enough for you to land your party at Fort Russell. Report on arrival to the commanding officer, and permit none of

your men to go into Cheyenne until he sends you. Then you are to return here with whatever may be intrusted to your care."

She was not at all surprised on reaching home to find her mother and Mrs. Miller

watching with eager eyes the departure of the cavalrymen. McLean and Nellie Bayard saw it too, and it gave them something to talk about a whole hour that afternoon, and paved the way for another talk the

next day--and the next.

That night, in quick succession, the telegraph brought four despatches to Laramie. As in duty bound, the messenger went first to the commanding officer, who held out his hand for

all four and was surprised at being accorded only two. "These are for Miss Forrest, sir," said the messenger. The major broke the envelope of his own, glanced at the first, and snapped his fingers with

delight and exultation.

"They've got him, Lizzie!" he chuckled to his eager helpmate. Then he tore open the other. The glad look vanished in an instant; the light of hope, relief, and satisfaction fled

from his eyes and the color from his cheeks. "My God!" he muttered, as his hand fell by his side.

"What is it, dear?" she queried, anxiously.

"Forrest is coming--post-haste. Will be here to-morrow night.

Now she's got to be told."

"Then, as it is all my fault, I must be the one," was the reply.

But even as they were discussing the matter, irresolute, distressed, there was a ring at the bell; and in a

moment who should enter the parlor, holding in her hand those fateful telegrams, but Miss Forrest herself? She came straight toward them--smiling, and Mrs. Miller and her half-dazed major arose to greet

her.

"I suppose I may be taken into official confidences to-night; may I not, major?" she said, gayly. "Mr. Holmes has probably wired us news which we can exchange. I congratulate you on the recovery of

your deserter, and you can rejoice with me in the recovery of my diamonds."

"Your diamonds!" exclaimed the major and his good wife in a breath. "When--how were they taken? Why did you not tell us?"

"They

were taken from my room--from my locked trunk--the night of Dr. Bayard's dinner,--the same night that his porte-monnaie and his beautiful amethyst set were stolen from Mr. Holmes. I did not tell any one at

first, because of Mrs. Forrest's prostrated condition, and because at first I suspected her servant Celestine and thought I could force her into restoring them without letting poor Ruth know anything about

it. Then I couldn't speak of it, for the next discovery I made simply stunned me and made me ill. Then, finally, I told Mr. Holmes, and he took the matter in charge. You have heard from my brother, too?" she

asked eagerly. "I am rejoiced at his coming, for it will do her a world of good, and she is wild with excitement and happiness now. How was it all managed, major? He wrote to me a fortnight ago that with the

prospect of incessant fighting before them it was impossible for him to ask for leave of absence, and begging me to help Ruth in every way in my power and save her from worry of any kind. You see how I was

placed. And now, all of a sudden, he is virtually ordered in, he wires me, and can attribute it to nothing but dangerous illness on her part. Did you get it for him? I know you did."

Miller and his wife

looked at her, then at one another in dumb amaze. What could he say? How could he force himself to tell this brave and spirited and self-sacrificing girl of the cloud of suspicion with which she had been

enveloped!

"Tell me about the diamonds," gasped Mrs. Miller to gain time. "Were they valuable? Though of course they must have been. Everything of yours is so beautiful and--well, I must say it all now--

costly."

"They were a present from my uncle, Mr. Courtlandt," she answered, simply. "I valued them more than anything I had. The trunk was entered by false keys, and the diamonds were taken out of their

locked case and spirited away. My first suspicion attached to Celestine and her soldier friend. They had been aroused before at Robinson. Then came this stunning surprise in my discovery next day, and a week

of great indecision and distress. Now, of course, the inspiration of the villany is captured, though more than ever do I suspect Celestine as being confederate, or possibly principal actor. She has been

utterly daft the last four days and constantly haunting the post-office for a letter that never comes."

"She will be wild enough when she knows the truth," said Miller, hoarsely. "The scoundrel had a wife

in Denver, where he was finally tracked and jailed. It was she who offered the diamonds in pawn. They did not manage things well, and should have waited, for he had over two hundred dollars,--must have had,

--for you and Mr. Holmes were not the only losers here."

"Who were the others?" she quickly asked.

"Mr. Hatton and Mr. McLean."

"Mr. McLean! Oh, the shame of it!" Miss Forrest paced rapidly up and down

the parlor floor, her eyes flashing, her cheeks flushed, her hands nervously twisting the filmy handkerchief she carried. Her excitement was something utterly foreign to her, and neither Miller nor his wife

could understand it. Suddenly, as though by uncontrollable impulse, she stopped before and faced them.

"Major Miller!" she exclaimed, "I must tell you something. I had made up my mind to do it yesterday.

It will not add to my faint popularity here, but I respect you and Mrs. Miller. I know you are his friends, and I want your advice. How am I to make amends to Mr. McLean? What am I to say to him? Do you know

that for a few days of idiocy I was made to believe that you suspected him of the thefts? and it was his handkerchief I found on the floor behind my trunk. What will the man think of me? And yet I must tell

him. I cannot sit by him day after day, see him, speak with him, and have my heart hammering out the words, 'He thinks you are his friend, and you thought him to be a thief.'"

It was more than Miller could

stand. "Miss Forrest! Miss Forrest!" he exclaimed, as his wife sank into an easy-chair and hid her face in her hands. "You cover me with shame and confusion. Never in my life have I heard of so extraordinary

a complication as this has been! never have I been so worried and distressed! My dear young lady, try and hear me patiently. You have been far more sinned against than sinning. A few hours ago Dr. Bayard--he

who led you in your suspicions, for he told me so--left here crushed and humbled to find that he had been so blind and unjust. But I would gladly exchange places with him, for I've been worse. I've been weak

enough to be made to look with other's eyes and not my own. McLean was indeed involved in grave suspicion, but nothing as compared with that which surrounded another,--a woman who was entitled to our utmost

sympathy and protection because her natural protector was in the field far from her side,--a woman who did find friends and protectors in my young officers,--McLean and Hatton,--God bless 'em for it! for

they stoutly refused to tell a thing until it was dragged from them by official inquiry, and then they had burned every tangible piece of evidence against her. She was at Robinson last winter, and money and

valuables were constantly disappearing. Silken skirts were heard trailing in dark hall-ways at night; her form was seen in the room of the plundered officers. The stories followed her to Laramie. The night

McLean and Hatton were robbed her silken skirts were heard trailing up the north hall of Bedlam and her feet scurrying over the gallery. Her handkerchief was found at McLean's bureau, and, while they were

all waiting for her at Mrs. Gordon's, McLean himself collided with a feminine shape in the darkness out on the parade, and it slipped away without a word as though fearing detection. The night of the robbery

at Bayard's she was alone up-stairs. Another night she was seen entering the hall-way without ringing the bell or knocking at the door. Another evening I, who was in the Bayards' library, listened for ten

minutes to some one who was striving to pick the lock and make a secret entrance while Elinor was confined to her room and the doctor was known to be a quarter of a mile away at the hospital. At last,

wearying of waiting for the thief to effect an entrance and permit of my seeing him or her in the hall, I sprang out upon the piazza and found--you. Then that night I strove to see Hatton and wring from him

his knowledge of what had been going on in Bedlam. You implored him not to go. You, unwittingly, made him and, through him, McLean believe it was your own trouble you sought to conceal; and, though I thank

God I was utterly mistaken, utterly wrong in my belief, I crave your forgiveness, Miss Forrest. It was I who urged that your brother be sent here at once, though the general believes it was on Mrs. Forrest's

account, that he might put an end to these peculations and restore what property could be recovered from you,--you who have suffered a loss far greater than all the others put together and never said a word

about it."

And poor Miller, who had never made so long a speech in his life before, turned chokingly away. Then Mrs. Miller spoke, and Miss Forrest's dilated eyes were turned slowly from the major's bulky

shape to the matronly form upon the sofa and the woe-begone face that appeared from behind the handkerchief. Miss Forrest's cheeks had paled and her lips were parted. She had seized and was leaning upon the

back of a chair, but not one word had she spoken. As Mrs. Miller's voice was heard, it seemed as though a slight contraction of the muscles brought about a decided frown upon her white forehead, but she

listened in utter silence.

"Indeed, Miss Forrest, you musn't blame the major too much. He wouldn't have listened to a word against you--if--if it hadn't been for me. I was all at fault. But I couldn't have

believed a word against you had it not been for those letters from Robinson. They--they----"

And here Mrs. Miller had recourse to her handkerchief, and Miss Forrest stretched forth her hand as though to

urge her say no more. There was intense silence in the parlor a moment. Then through the open windows came the sudden sound of a scuffle, a woman's shriek, a sudden fall, voluble curses and ravings in

Celestine's familiar tones, and the rush of many feet toward Bedlam.

Seizing his cap and hurrying thither, the major pushed his way through an excited group on the lower gallery. The sergeant of the guard,

lantern in hand, was wonderingly contemplating the Scotch "striker" Lachlan, who firmly clung to the wrist of the struggling, swearing girl, despite her adjurations to let her go. Other men from the quarters

were clustered around them, hardly knowing what to say, for Lachlan contented himself with the single word "thief!" and never relaxed his grasp until the major bade him do so, but instantly renewed it as his

prisoner attempted to spring away. McLean came limping to the scene from the direction of the doctor's quarters just as Miss Forrest, too, appeared, and him Lachlan addressed:

"I found her rummaging in the

bureau, sir."

And then Miss Forrest's quiet voice was heard as soon as the major's orders to bring a gag had silenced the loud protestations and accusations of the negress.

"It is as we supposed, major.

That is the skirt of an old silk I gave her last winter."

An hour later Celestine was locked in a room at the laundress's quarters, where stout "Mrs. Sergeant Flynn" organized an Amazon guard of heroines,

who, like herself, had followed the drum for many a year; who assured the major the prisoner would never escape from their clutches, and whose motto appeared to be, "Put none but Irishwomen on guard to-

night."

XX.

Confessions, of various sorts, were the order of the day at Laramie during the week that followed this important arrest, and then the fortnight of accusation was at an end. Parsons, the

deserter, led off the day after his return to the post under escort of the little squad sent down from Terry's troop to meet him at Cheyenne. He was stubborn and silent at first, but when told by the

corporal of the guard that Celestine had "gone back on him the moment she heard he had a wife at Denver, and had more than given him away," he concluded that it was time to deny some of the accusations