ng 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,