s and clasping hands, a well-nigh broken
and all contrite heart, could have bathed his feet with her tears and
implored his forgiveness. It was characteristic of Oswald Dwight,--the
old Oswald Dwight coming once again through this hell of suffering and
from the very threshold of the other world into the kingdom of
self-search and self-dominion,--that he should send for her,--beg that
she should be brought to him,--that he might lift from her mind a moiety
at least of its weight of self-accusation. It was characteristic of him
thereafter that, after the first few hours with his blessed boy--and God
alone knows what intensity of prayer, petition, love, and resolve surged
through the heart and soul of the almost re-created man--he should try
to show Priscilla Sanford that he blamed himself alone, not her; that he
honored her, respected her, believed in her, and that he rejoiced to see
the friendship that was daily growing between her and his beloved little
son. The readings that seemed so long to the censorious were not all
reading, after all, for presently and little by little the book would be
dropped, the page would be discussed, and, once away from her hobby of
original, sin and universal damnation--the Calvinistic creed of that
stern, pure-hearted if Puritanical woman--there was much that appealed
to the stern, true-hearted soldier nature of the even maturer man. A
famous Covenanter--a Roundhead after Cromwell's own heart--might Oswald
Dwight have been had he dwelt in Merry England, where sunstrokes were
unknown and dark-eyed sirens seldom heard of. As for Priscilla, she
needed but the garb to fit her for the austere duties of the sect whence
sprung her mother and her name. But it was a chastened, softened,
subdued Priscilla that now wrestled in spirit with the problem set
before her. She knew no woman in all Minneconjou except Aunt Marion with
whom to take counsel, and how could she wound, terrify, Aunt Marion with
her growing suspicion! She knew but one man in all Minneconjou on whom
she felt a longing to lean the burden of her deep trouble, and how could
she bring herself to mention it to him!

For within the week that followed the day of that drive and disaster the
level-headed soldier in command of the department had been to Fort
Wister; had held an official inspection and a personal investigation at
Minneconjou; had interrogated and, it was whispered, instructed Captain
Foster, with the result that, though deeply