"My God, man! Will you give me your word—your hand—on that?"
For all answer Willett drew off the dainty glove of white lisle thread, took the outstretched hand of Case, wrung it, and turned in silence from the room.
There were men who mounted and rode with him a mile or more that night, and came back silent and sorrowing, yet thinking better of Hal Willett than any of their number had ever thought before.
"He has gone to do the one square thing that's left him," said Old Stannard, as the buckboard whirled away, "and his resignation goes with him."
L'ENVOI.
That was many a long year ago, and for many a month thereafter men and women at Whipple and Sandy, McDowell and Almy would talk for hours about Willett, his strange character, his broken career. It was not long before the truth, the whole truth, was known. Case for a time would not return to Almy. He found some work to keep him busy at Prescott, and would have had to do no work at all, said the agent of the Wells-Fargo, "if he'd kept his money, but he sent every damned cent of four hundred dollars to somebody up at Portland." He was forever on the lookout for the coming of the buckboard with the mail—we had no telegraph until '74—and his excitement over the receipt of certain letters and newspapers, along in mid-February, was something not soon to be forgotten. He had been sober and solemn as an anchorite for over six long weeks, and this night, to the joy of the gamblers in the Alcazar, insisted on "setting 'em up" for all hands, soldier and civilian; then, to their amaze, insisted further on their drinking to the health of Mr. and Mrs. Hal Willett, by gad! "for he's a square man at last."
And the news lacked no confirmation at the barracks. There came a missive to Wickham; there was a message to the general; there was a very earnest message to 'Tonio; there was even a letter in Willett's hand to Evelyn Darrah. No one ever saw its contents save the girl to whom it was addressed, but there came nothing to be forwarded to the Archers at Camp Almy. From that night among the cedars Lilian never again saw Harold Willett. It was a pitifully insignificant little packet of letters the young officer found on his desk the morning of his return from the Hassayampa road. It contained only the pages he had penned to his Lily of the Desert. The earlier ones were fond, endearing, sweet as girl could ask, and had been rapturously welcomed, read and reread, kissed and fondled and treasured. The later ones were hurried, perfunctory, full of excuses, full, alas! of lies that he knew and that he hated himself for writing. There was not so much as a line from her, nor was one needed. Between the few words spoken by his general in the darkness of the veranda and that one conference with Wickham, Willett knew exactly what he had to face. Just as it had dawned upon him that breathless night at Almy, when the ravings of the Irish deserter told him that his sin had followed and had found him out, he realized here at Whipple that all was known and, for him, all was over. He had burned in vain the burning and accusing letters that poor girl in Portland had written him. Her mother at last, learning everything, had written to Crook, and, through Wickham, who had investigated both Case and the deserter Dooley, Willett received his congé. There should be no public break. It was to be announced that at his own request Lieutenant Willett stood relieved from duty as aide-de-camp to the department commander, and would proceed to rejoin his regiment in the Department of the Columbia; but even Wickham started with surprise and incredulity when, accompanying this application, at the close of 'Tonio's dramatic trial, Willett gravely handed him another paper—his resignation as an officer of the army.
"I do not understand this as—demanded," said Blackbeard, looking quickly into Willett's pallid face.
"You will, when you remember that my wife—and child—would hardly be acceptable in army circles," was the quiet reply.
"You mean—you are going at once to marry her?"