his death a volunteer missionary to
this treacherous and bloodthirsty tribe.

Another man, under the circumstances, might have been unnerved by such
sudden and awful news, and let fall the paper, but not the Iron King.
He grasped it only with a firmer hand, and read it again with keener
eyes.

"What under the heavens took that man out there? Had he gone suddenly
mad? That seems to be the only possible explanation of his conduct. To
abandon his bride on the day of his marriage--to abandon his high
official position as governor of this State on the day of his
inauguration, and without giving any living creature a hint of his
intention, to fly off at a tangent and go to the Indian country and
become a missionary to those red devils, and be massacred for his
pains--it was the work of a raving maniac. But what drove him mad?
Surely it was not his high elevation that turned his head, for if it had
been, his madness would never have taken this particular direction of
flying from his honors. No! it is as I have always suspected. He heard,
in some way, of the girl's English lover, and he, with his besotted
devotion to her, was just the man to be morbidly, madly jealous, and to
do some such idiotic thing as he has done, and get himself murdered and
burned to ashes for his pains! Yes; and it serves him right!--it serves
him--right!"

He sat glowering at the paragraph, and growling over his news for some
time longer, but at length he took it up and walked over to the back
parlor, where he felt sure he should find his two women.

Mrs. Rockharrt and Cora, who sat at a table before the gloomy coal fire,
and were engaged in some fancy needlework, looked up uneasily as he
entered; not that they expected bad news, but that they feared bad
temper.

"Cora," he began, "I shall not insist on your going to the ball
to-morrow."

She looked up in surprise, and a grateful exclamation was on her lips,
but he forestalled it by saying:

"I suppose the news is all over the city by this time. I am going out
to hear what the people are saying about it, and to see if the
government house and the public offices are to be hung in mourning.
There--there it is told in the first column of this paper."

And with cruel abruptness he laid the newspaper on the table between the
two women, and pointed out the fatal paragraph.

Then he stalked out of the room, and called his man-servant to help him
on with his heavy overcoat.

That house, on th