t is useless
to waste further time," says the lieutenant, who presently rejoins the
colonel behind the tavern, and finds him staring up at the rear windows.
To him the young officer, briefly and in low tone, reports the result of
his search.

"I presume there is nothing else I can do just here, is there, colonel?"
he asks. The colonel shakes his head.

"Nothing that I can think of, unless you look through the halls and
office."

"We are going there. Shall I light you back to the street?"

"Er--ah--no! I think I'll wait here--just a moment," says the colonel,
and, marvelling not a little, the subaltern leaves him.

No sooner is he gone, followed by his men, than Colonel Putnam steps
back to the side of an old chain-pump that he has found in the course of
his researches, and here he leans for support. Though his shoulder has
set in shape, and is doing fairly well, he has had two rather long
drives this day, and one fatiguing experience; he is beginning to feel
wearied, but is not yet ready to go to his bed. That was Doctor Warren's
shadow, bent and feeble, that he saw upon the yellow light of the
window-shade a moment ago, and he is worried at the evidence of
increasing weakness and sorrow. Even while he rests there, irresolute as
to what he ought to do--whether to go and insist on his right, as a man
and a father, to be of some comfort to another in his sore trial, or to
respect that father's evident wish to conceal his daughter's interest in
the trouble that had come upon them--he is startled to see another
shadow, hers; and this shadow is in hat and veil. Whither can they be
going at this hour of the night? 'Tis nearly ten o'clock. Yes, surely;
there is the doctor's bent shadow once more, and he has thrown on an
outer coat of some kind. Then they are going back by the night train.
They shrink from having it known that she was here at all; that she was
in any way interested. And the doctor wants to make his escape without
the pang of seeing or being seen again by those who witnessed his utter
shock and distress this day. So be it! thinks the colonel. God knows I
would not intrude on the sanctity of his sorrow or her secret. Later,
when they are home again, the matter can be looked into so far as
getting specimens of this skulking felon's handwriting is concerned, and
no one need know, when he is unearthed, that it was a young girl he was
luring under the name of another man. So be it! They may easily elude
all que