eet, where no one could see them, and
she had stooped and kissed his icy forehead in the darkened room before
he was carried out: Stephen saw her do it. After the funeral, Brother
Bethuel and Honor went away together; Stephen returned to the inn.
Adelaide had taken upon herself the task of answering the letters.
Allison had no father or mother, but his other relatives and friends
were writing. Royce, his one young burst of grief over, went about
sternly, his whole soul set on revenge. Now troops came: an officer of
the United States army had been killed, and the Department was aroused
at last. There were several officers at Ellerby now, older men than
Allison and more experienced; a new expedition was to be sent into the
mountains to route these banditti and make an end of them. Royce was
going as guide; he knew where the former attack had been made, and he
knew, also, the detective's reasons for suspecting Eagle Knob, the
detective himself being now out of the field, owing to brain-fever: the
United States authorities had ordered him out of jail, and he was at the
inn, having his fever comfortably on the ground-floor. Honor was with
Adelaide almost constantly now. The elder woman, who always received her
caressingly, seemed puzzled by the girl's peculiar manner. She said
little, but sat and listened to every word, turning her dark eyes slowly
from one speaker to the next. Royce came and went, brought in his maps,
talked, and every now and then made the vases on the table ring as he
brought down his strong hand with an emphasis of defiance.

"I can not study," Honor had said to Stephen when he made some allusion
to their morning hours. She said it simply, without excuse or disguise;
he did not ask her again.

The expedition was to start on Monday night. The whole village, in the
mean time, had been carefully intrusted with the secret that it was to
go on Tuesday. But on Sunday evening Honor discovered that before
midnight the hounds were to be let slip. The very soldiers themselves
did not know it. How did the girl learn it, then? She divined it from
some indefinable signs in Royce. Even Adelaide did not suspect it; and
Stephen saw only the girl's own restlessness. She slipped away like a
ghost--so like one that Stephen himself did not see her go. He followed
her, however, almost immediately; it was too late for her to go through
the village alone. He was some distance behind her. To his surprise, she
did not go homewa