autiful fur. My back was turned, but the mirror over the mantel
showed it."

"How do you know he lost it?"

"He told me confidentially that he was sure it was taken from his
pocket, but he is trying to make the doctor believe he lost it through
his own carelessness."

"Seems to me you have confidential relations all around, Eliza; what
more has been imparted to you as a secret?"

"Nothing," answered Mrs. Miller, paying no attention whatever to the
first portion of the remark; "I have heard quite enough, combined with
what we all know, to make me feel that either crime or kleptomania is
going on, and the 'Queen of Bedlam' is at the bottom of it."

"What is it that 'we all know?'"

"That she dresses in most extravagant style; that she has suddenly had
to quit her uncle's roof, where she lived for years, and come out here
to be a burden on her brother, who has nothing but his pay, unless you
count an invalid wife and a riotous young brood as assets. She is
strange, odd, insolent, and defiant in manner. Shuns all friendship,
and refuses to tell anybody what was the cause of her leaving New York
as she did. One thing more,--she has sent two registered letters from
here within the last three days----"

"Now, how do you know that?" burst in the major, an angry light in his
eyes.

"Well, my dear, don't fly off at a tangent. It is a perfectly natural
thing to speak of. Hardly anybody ever sends registered letters."

"That's not so; there are dozens sent by the officers and men after
every pay-day."

"I mean hardly any women, major. I'm not talking of the men. Hardly any
woman ever sends a registered letter, and so when she sent two it was
not at all strange that Mrs. Griffin should speak of it to the
steward's wife, and she told Mrs. Gordon's Sally, and so it came to
me."

"Oh, yes. I'll be bound it reached you sooner or later," said the major
wrathfully. "I'm d-blessed if anything goes on at this or any other
post you women don't get hold of and knock out of shape. I shall tell
Griffin that his position as postmaster won't be worth the powder to
blow him into the middle of the Platte if that wife of his doesn't hold
her tongue. No, I won't listen to any more of it to-night, anyway. I
want to think over what you have told me."

* * * * *

And over at Bedlam there were lights still burning at one o'clock. One
of them shone from Mr. Hatton's room at the north end of the sec