s also anxious to leave the city, which she knew was in a fresh
ferment of gossip and conjecture on the subject of her lost husband, the
deceased governor-elect. The news from the Indian Territory had renewed
all the public interest in the mystery of his disappearance.

For some months before this news arrived, the community had settled down
to the conviction that the missing governor had been murdered and his
body made away with, although, as there was no proof to establish the
fact of their theory, there was no thought of inaugurating the
lieutenant-governor as chief magistrate of the State.

Yet, now, when the startling news came that the missing statesman had
been killed by the Comanches in the wilds of the Indian Reservation, far
from any agency, and that he had been living and preaching there as a
volunteer missionary for many months before the massacre, the mystery of
his sudden and unexplained disappearance from the State capital on the
day of his inauguration was not cleared up and made intelligible, but
darkened and rendered more inscrutable.

It was easy enough to understand why a missing man might have been lured
away from his dwelling by some false letter or plausible message, and
murdered in some secret place where his body lay buried in earth or
water, for such crimes were not unfrequent.

But that a bridegroom should secretly depart on the evening of his
wedding day, that a governor should take flight on the evening before
his inauguration, was a course of action only to be explained on the
ground of insanity; and yet Regulas Rothsay was always considered one of
the most level-headed and mentally well balanced among the rising young
statesmen of the country.

Conjecture had once been wild as to the cause of his disappearance--had
he been murdered, or kidnapped, or both? Those were the questions then.

Conjecture was now rampant as to the cause of his sudden flight and self
expatriation to the Indian Territory. Had he suddenly gone mad? Or
committed a capital crime which was on the eve of discovery? These were
the questions now.

Every newspaper was full of the problem, which none but one could solve,
and she was bound to secrecy.

But it gave her inexpressible pain to know that his motives and his
character were being discussed and censured for that course of conduct
for which only herself was to be blamed, and which only she could
explain. A word from her would show him in a very different light