Howard was gone before this, but there was Brannan's writing-case in Haney's possession, why not throw further suspicion upon him? and so there were the papers hidden in the hopes of further damning him should he ever appear as a witness against them. For all this and much more the poor dying sinner craved forgiveness, and, hearing promptly of the confession, through Finucane, who had fled with horse, equipments, and everything, Howard, in hiding and in want at Butte, wired to his captain, hoping to extract more money, for Devers had been a thrifty, and was regarded a wealthy, man.
And then when this confession had been made known to the wounded sufferer the chaplain spoke. "You see the case that is building up against you, Powlett, and just as soon as you are able to sit or stand the court will meet for your trial. You have assault with intent to kill, at Bluff Siding if not at Urbana, highway robbery, theft, desertion, conspiracy, and kindred crimes to answer for; would it not be infinitely better that you should confess fully and at once? Even the men whom you have so bitterly wronged join in no clamor against—they would even spare—you."
But Powlett was a villain game, and answered only with a sneer. It was that packet of Mira's letters handed to Davies with his father's watch that supplemented Brannan's story and told him all. Mira could not live without adorers, could not resist the longing to flaunt her victims in the faces of other girls, and Powlett was a conquest indeed until his rascality at the institute became known. Then he had to flee, but such was his infatuation that he returned in hopes of seeing her. She did meet him in secret, for it was sweet to see his despair. She refused to meet him again, however, and then he charged her with faithlessness and demanded to be told the truth about Davies. If that fellow reappeared as her lover he swore to kill him, and then she bade him go and never see her more, with the result already known. And at Bluff Siding in the crowd and confusion he might have killed Davies but for Brannan's watchful eye and warding hand. That was the last pound that broke the back of Brannan's feeling of friendship and gratitude. He would no more of Powlett, yet remained true to his pledge of secrecy. Mira's dream of joy and triumph as an army bride met its first rude shock when, under her window at Scott, she heard stealthy footsteps and the soft, low whistling of a familiar air, the signal with which he used to summon her to their trysting-place at home. The mad fool thought either to recover his ascendency over her or revenge himself by tormenting, and then, when her husband was sent to the agency and he saw opportunity of meeting and terrorizing her, he was infuriated with new jealousy by her flirtation with Willett. Even there at Scott he must have written and made further threats, for the freshest and newest of the precious collection of her letters found in "Brannan's" case referred to something of the kind. Driven to desperation, she wrote that she would expose him to her husband and Captain Cranston if he again presumed to address her, and finally wrote this last:
"My husband will be here within forty-eight hours and I have fully resolved to confess all to him: that you, who made the cowardly assault and left him for dead at Urbana, and have been guilty of such abominable crimes, are here, in this garrison, a soldier in his troop. If you remain it is at your peril. On my knees I swear it." And with this melodramatic conclusion Mira had really frightened him. He had sense enough to know that, with all the other complications in which he was involved, this exposure was more than he could stand. He made other efforts to see and plead with her, but they were fruitless, and his own melodramatic coup,—his last appearance, as he supposed, before her eyes, then followed. After that, desertion.
Davies read but two of these missives, the first and the last. He restored them to her without a word. She was lying in the seclusion of her shaded room at the hotel when he returned from the hospital, the chaplain with him. They spoke few words together on the way, and parted on the corridor, near her door, for there Davies turned and faced his friend.
"And you must go back to Scott to-night, sir?"
"Yes." The chaplain was still grasping his hand and looking into the sad, stern face with anxiety and tenderness and unspoken longing in his eyes. "I will see to all you have charged me with." He placed his other hand upon the broad shoulder before him. "My son, though I never met, I knew, your father, and that told me what to look for in you." And now the rich, deep voice was tremulous, and the kind old eyes were dim with unshed tears. "The hand of the Lord has been laid in heaviness upon you, but 'those whom He loveth He chasteneth.' Even could I lift the burden of your sorrow as easily as I raise this hand, I should falter, because, as I believe in God, so do I believe that through trial even such as this your light shall yet shine before men so pure and strong that men themselves shall be purer and stronger because of it."
There was a moment's pause. Davies stood with bowed head. Cranston, coming into the hall-way, stopped at sight of them and tiptoed back, motioning to others to wait. Then the chaplain spoke again,—
"You will write—as soon as—you have decided?"
"I have decided," was the low, calm answer.