ects me now with life
and with you. But I have nothing more to say except, forgive--forgive--

"Do you think that God looks at his wretched ones differently from
what men do? That He will have tenderness for one so sorry--that
He will even find place-- But my mother is there! my father! Oh,
that makes it fearful to go--to meet-- But it was my father who
led me into this--only he did not know-- There! I will think
only of God.

"Good by--good by--good--"

That was all. It ended, as it began, without name and without date,--the
final heart-throbs of a soul, awakened to its own act when it
was quite too late. A piteous memorial which daunted each one of
us as we read it, and when finished, drew us all together in the
hall out of the sight and hearing of the two persons most intimately
concerned in it.

Possibly because all had one thought--a thrilling one, which the
major was the first to give utterance to.

"The man she killed was buried under the name of Wallace. How's
that, if he was her husband, William?"

An officer we had not before noted was standing near the front door.
He came forward at this and placed a second telegram in the
superintendent's hand. It was from the same source as the one
previously received and appeared to settle this very question.

"I have just learned that the man married was not the one who kept
store in Owosso, but his brother William, who afterward died in
Klondike. It is Wallace whose death you are investigating."

"What snarl is here?" asked the major.

"I think I understand," I ventured to put in. "Her husband was the
one left on the road by the brother who staggered into camp for aid.
He was a weak man--the weaker of the two she said--and probably
died, while Wallace, after seemingly collapsing, recovered. This
last she did not know, having failed to read the whole of the
newspaper slip which told about it, and so when she saw some one
with the Pfeiffer air and figure and was told later that a Mr.
Pfeiffer was waiting to see her, she took it for granted that it
was her husband, believing positively that Wallace was dead. The
latter, moreover, may have changed to look more like his brother
in the time that had elapsed."

"A possible explanation which adds greatly to the tragic aspects
of the situation. She was probably a widow when she touched the
fatal spring. Who will tell the man inside there? It will be his
crowning blow."

XXVI

RUDGE