school and met Angeline Robideau
there. They had another friend living in Cheyenne, and when they were up
there visiting her for a few days they said Mr. Powell was coming up to
spend one evening,--Powell is the name they all knew him by, and the
belief is that Angie was much fascinated by him, and had met him East
before meeting him here. Mr. Davies, I am glad to relieve your mind of
one uncomfortable theory in connection with this affair. I wish I could
extenuate or explain Willett's conduct as easily, but that young man is
a fool of the first magnitude."

Davies had taken the note handed him by Langston and was mechanically
turning it and twisting it in his fingers. His impulse was to toss it,
as he had the anonymous billet, into the fire. There was something about
the handwriting of the former that was vaguely familiar to him even
through its disguise, but Willett's scrawling superscription he had
never seen. Something told him, however, that anything of which a man of
Langston's calibre chose to be the bearer was entitled to consideration.
He made no reply to Langston's closing words. He had fully made up his
mind as to what his course should be, and what was the extent of Mira's
misdoing. Just as he said to her, he blamed those who should have been
her advisers and protectors far more than he blamed her, and as to this
popinjay who had become infatuated with her beauty, though the
lieutenant's blood boiled in wrath and indignation, his calmer judgment
and his disciplined spirit tempered any and every expression. He had
spent long, wakeful, prayerful hours in the silence and solemnity of the
night, and no man knew the story of the struggle. He had trained himself
to meet this man who had so openly and persistently shown himself a
worshipper at the feet of his wife, and to meet him with cool contempt,
yet the same hot blood that rioted in his veins when, long years before,
he had downed the village scoffer who had ventured to ridicule his aged
mother, now prompted him to horsewhip Willett should he venture again to
visit the fort.

It was relief, therefore, to hear that he had gone.

At last he opened and read the note, a clumsy, cubbish attempt to
explain his language in Sanders's room, and to say the package was
absolutely nothing but some violets, to apologize for any and every
annoyance he might have caused Mr. and Mrs. Davies, for whom he
entertained nothing but sentiments of the most profound respect and
es