ty dollars I'll work my fingers to the bone until
I pay it. For the old home's sake, please do."

"It's the same hand,--the same woman, Cram, beyond a doubt. She bled
Waring for the old home's sake the first winter he was in the South. He
told me all about it two years ago in Washington, when we heard of her
the second time. Now she's followed him over here, or got here first,
tried the same game probably, met with a refusal, and this anonymous
note is her revenge. The man she married was a crack-brained weakling
who got into the army the fag end of the war, fell in love with her
pretty face, married her, then they quarrelled, and he drank himself
into a muddle-head. She ran him into debt; then he gambled away
government funds, bolted, was caught, and would have been tried and sent
to jail, but some powerful relative saved him that, and simply had him
dropped;--never heard of him again. She was about a month grass-widowed
when Waring came on his first duty there. He had an uncongenial lot of
brother officers for a two-company post, and really had known of this
girl and her people before the war, and she appealed to him, first for
sympathy and help, then charity, then blackmail, I reckon, from which
his fever saved him. Then she struck some quartermaster or other and
lived off him for a while; drifted over here, and no sooner did he
arrive, all ignorant of her presence in or around New Orleans, than she
began pestering him again. When he turned a deaf ear, she probably
threatened, and then came these anonymous missives to you and Braxton.
Yours always came by mail, you say. The odd thing about the
colonel's--this one, at least--is that it was with his mail, but never
came through the post-office."

"That's all very interesting," said the little civilian, dryly, "but
what we want is evidence to acquit him and convict somebody else of
Lascelles's death. What has this to do with the other?"

"This much: This letter came to Braxton by hand, not by mail,--by hand,
probably direct from her. What hand had access to the office the day
when the whole command was out at review? Certainly no outsider. The
mail is opened and distributed on its arrival at nine o'clock by the
chief clerk, or by the sergeant-major, if he happens to be there, though
he's generally at guard mount. On this occasion he was out at review.
Leary, chief clerk, tells Colonel Braxton he opened and distributed the
mail, putting the colonel's on his desk; Root