ecognized him at once as
the one of the two civilians on the sleeper the previous June who had
not been suggestively and impertinently intrusive, yet she welcomed him
only formally even now because of that association. Langston had heard
the first mention of a Mrs. Davies with an inexplicable little pang, and
the further description of her with quick reaction, for his instant
thought was of Miss Loomis. The dinner dragged, despite every effort,
for Almira was distinctly and determinedly unresponsive. Margaret was
glad when it was over, glad when Almira early went home, for matters
brightened somewhat with her disappearance. Langston paid his dinner
call with surprising promptitude, and then overjoyed "the ladies" with a
box of rarest roses expressed from Margaret's own beloved home. "I know
how many of these are meant for me," she said, with almost fierce
rejoicing. "Oh, Wilbur!" she cried that evening, as she nestled in his
arms in front of their cheery fire, "if only he is all they say of him,
and she should----"

"Should what, Meg?" he densely queried.

"Should--why, you know just as well as I do, and he has such a fine
practice, and comes from such an admirable family and all that."

"Undoubtedly,--but where does Agatha come in?"

"Wilbur, you are just as provokingly sluggish as our own Chicago
River,--what wouldn't I give for a sight of its dirty face sometimes
when--when you're away! Now, be honest. Don't you know he never could
have sent all that way for all those roses--just for me?"

"_I_ would."

"Oh, you,--you are----" but the entrance of Miss Loomis herself with
sorrow in her face blocked the conference.

"Captain Cranston," she said, "Brannan has been sent to the guard-house
again. I know he has not been drinking. What can it possibly mean?"

It meant, said Captain Devers, when respectfully approached upon the
subject in the morning, that on very strong circumstantial evidence he
had discovered the identity of the night prowler. Brannan certainly
answered the description given by the chaplain, despite the chaplain's
assurance that he didn't believe it was Brannan, and Brannan, said
Devers, when not in the guard-house or hospital, had frequently been out
of his quarters at midnight.

CHAPTER XXI.

Cranston's six days home-keeping sped all too swiftly away. It was now
definitely settled that his troop and Truman's were to remain
indefinitely on duty at the agency. The general hated the ide