A quick, springy step is suddenly heard on the wooden walk without, the rattle of an infantry sword against the steps, an imperative rat-tat-tat at the door. Elinor speeds away to hide her flushed cheeks and tearful eyes in the solitude of her room. Bayard quickly composes his features to their conventional calm and recedes to the gloom of the library. Robert majestically stalks through the hall and opens the door.
"Dr. Bayard in?" asks the brusque voice of the adjutant. "Ah, doctor," continues that officer, marching straightway into the den, "Major Miller is at the gate and on his way to visit Mr. McLean. He begs that you will be present at the interview, as it is on a matter of much importance."
"Very well, Mr. Adjutant," answers Bayard, gravely, as though divining the solemn import of their errand. "I am at your service at once."
XVII.
An odd despatch was that which went by the single wire of the military telegraph line to Fort Fetterman late that night. It was known that a small escort would leave that point early in the morning, going through with a staff-officer en route to join the field column now busily engaging the hostile Indians along the northern foot-hills of the Big Horn range. Major Miller asked the commanding officer at Fetterman to hold back a brace of horsemen to await the arrival of a courier just leaving Laramie, and bearing an important and confidential letter to the general commanding the department, who was with his troops in the field. It was over eighty miles by the river road; the night was dark and the skies overcast. There might be Indians along the route; there certainly were no soldiers, for, with the exception of eight or ten men, all of Captain Terry's troop were with him scouting on the north side of the Platte and over near the Sioux reservations. All the same, a single trooper, armed only with the revolver and unburdened by the usual blankets and field kit,—riding almost as light as a racer,—was to make the run and reach Fetterman the next afternoon.
This was the result of the interview with Lieutenant McLean, a conference at which were present Major and Mrs. Miller, Dr. Bayard, and the adjutant. Why Mrs. Miller, the wife of the commanding officer, should have been present in any capacity, it is not the province of the narrator to defend. She had been assiduously nursing and caring for the young officer in his weak and wounded condition. She had him where he could not escape her shrewd and relentless questionings. She was enabled to tell him much that Hatton had told her and a few things she certainly thought he had and therefore said he had. She was further enabled to tell him of the letters from Robinson and all they portended; of Mr. Holmes's loss and what she had seen in the mirror; of her own meeting with Miss Forrest in the darkness of the doctor's hall; of the registered letters sent away when everybody knew Mrs. Forrest hadn't a penny except the captain's pay, and that she had openly and repeatedly announced that her sister-in-law had now come to be a burden, too, having quarrelled with her relatives in the East. And so, little by little, she had drawn from McLean the story of Hatton's farewell words and the discovery of the card in the handkerchief. Then, fortified with this intelligence, and firmly convinced that she could not be mistaken in the guilt of her Majesty of Bedlam, Mrs. Miller reopened the subject and prodded the major into immediate action. She meant well. She intended no public exposure, no unnecessary disgrace. She merely wanted that Captain Forrest should come at once, compel his much-afflicted sister (for, of course, kleptomania was the sole explanation) to make restitution, and then remove her to some safe retreat in the distant East. Miller decided to see McLean at once, taking his adjutant to jot down the statements made, and Dr. Bayard because of his rank in the service and his professional connection with the officer in question. Mrs. Miller decided to be present because of McLean's great reluctance to tell what he knew and because she conceived it her duty to prompt him; and this was the quartet that swooped down upon the poor fellow in his defenceless condition late that sunshiny afternoon. No wonder his recovery was delayed!
The most stunned and bewildered man of the party while the painful interview was in progress was Dr. Bayard. He had gone in the confident expectation that McLean was to be confronted with the evidences of his guilt, and offered the chance of immediate resignation. His patient was sufficiently removed from the danger-line to enable him to sustain the shock, and he had not interposed. It was too late, therefore, to put an end to matters on that plea when to his horror-stricken ears was revealed the evidence against the woman who had so enthralled and piqued him. Miller led him away in a semi-dazed condition after the close of the conference, and then at last the doctor's vehement emotions found tongue.
"And all this time you have been suspecting that poor young fellow!" said the major, with a touch of reproach in his voice.
There was silence an instant. The doctor stopped short and leaned against the fence in front of the adjutant's quarters, his face purpling with wrath and indignation, his lips twitching, his hands clinched. Miller looked at him in amaze, and then came the outburst:
"Suspect him! By heaven, sir! What it was before is nothing to what I feel now! That in his depravity he should have stolen was bad enough; but that now, to cover his tracks, he should accuse and defame a defenceless woman is infamy! Look at his story, and tell me could anything be more pitiful and mendacious? Her handkerchief was found in his bureau the night of the robbery. Where is the handkerchief now? He burned it! He found a note on a card from her hidden in the handkerchief she had given Hatton to replace in the drawer. Where is the card? He burned it! He 'purposely destroyed all evidence against her.' A sham Quixote! Who found her handkerchief in his bureau? Who saw the burning? Who put the handkerchief in the drawer? Who told him of her confession? Who heard her beg that you should be delayed in your investigation? Who, in fact, is corroborating witness to everything and anything he alleges, but the man he believes, and I believe, you can never reach again. Hatton is failing rapidly."