“In the inside pocket of that old overcoat of mine, hanging there on the rear tent pole,” was the answer, as the General turned half-round in his chair and glanced wistfully, self-reproachfully thither.
Armstrong arose, and going to the back of the tent, made close examination. The canvas home of the chief was what is known as the hospital tent, but instead of being pitched with the ordinary ridgepole and uprights, a substantial wooden frame and floor had first been built and over this the stout canvas was stretched, stanch and taut as the head of a drum. It was all intact and sound. Whoever filched that packet made way with it through the front, and that, as Armstrong well knew, was kept tightly laced, as a rule, from the time the General left it in the morning until his return. It was never unlaced except in his presence or by his order. Then the deft hands of the orderlies on duty would do the trick in a twinkling. Knowing all this, the colonel queried further:
“You went in town, as I remember, late that evening and called on the Primes and other people at the Palace. I think I saw you in the supper room. There was much merriment at your table. Mrs. Garrison seemed to be the life of the party. Now, you left your overcoat with the boy at the cloak stand?”
“No, Armstrong, that’s the odd part of it. I only used the cape that evening. The coat was hanging at its usual place when I returned late, with a mass of new orders and papers. No! no! But here, I must get back to the office, and what I wished you to see was that poor boy’s letter. What can you hope with a nature like that to deal with?”
Armstrong took the missive held out to him, and slowly read it, the General studying his face the while. The letter bore no clue as to the whereabouts of the writer. It read:
“March 1st, ’98.
“It is six weeks since I repaid all your loving kindness, brought shame and sorrow to you and ruin to myself, by deserting from West Point when my commission was but a few short months away. In an hour of intense misery, caused by a girl who had won my very soul, and whose words and letters made me believe she would become my wife the month of my graduation, and who, as I now believe, was then engaged to the man she married in January, I threw myself away. My one thought was to find her, and God knows what beyond.
“It can never be undone. My career is ended, and I can never look you in the face again. At first I thought I should show the letters, one by one, to the man she married, and ask him what he thought of his wife, but that is too low. I hold them because I have a mad longing to see her again and heap reproaches upon her, but, if I fail and should I feel at any time that my end is near, I’m going to send them to you to read—to see how I was lured, and then, if you can, to pity and forgive.
“Rollin.”
Armstrong’s firm lips twitched under his mustache. The General, with moist eyes, had risen from his chair and mechanically held forth his hand. “Poor lad!” sighed Armstrong. “Of course—you know who the girl was?”