ot--in prison? To me he is nowhere. I am childless.

MRS. HAVERILL. I hope to see him to-day; may I not take him some kind
word from you?

HAVERILL. My lawyers in New York had instructions to provide him with
whatever he needed.

MRS. HAVERILL. They have done so, and he wants for nothing; he asks
for nothing, except that I will seek out the poor young wife--only a
girl herself--whom he is obliged to desert, in New York.

HAVERILL. His marriage was a piece of reckless folly, but I forgave
him that.

MRS. HAVERILL. I am sure that it was only after another was dependent
on him that the debts of a mere spendthrift were changed to fraud--and
crime.

HAVERILL. You may tell him that I will provide for her.

MRS. HAVERILL. And may I take him no warmer message from his father?

HAVERILL. I am an officer of the United States Army. The name which
my son bears came to me from men who had borne it with honour, and I
transmitted it to him without a blot. He has disgraced it, by his own
confession.

MRS. HAVERILL. _I_ cannot forget the poor mother who died when he was
born; her whose place I have tried to fill, to both Frank and to you.
I never saw her, and she is sleeping in the old graveyard at home. But
I am doing what she would do to-day, if she were living. No pride--no
disgrace--could have turned her face from him. The care and the love
of her son has been to me the most sacred duty which one woman can
assume for another.

HAVERILL. You have fulfilled that duty, Constance. Go to my son! I
would go with you, but he is a man now; he could not look into my
eyes, and I could not trust myself. But I will send him something
which a man will understand. Frank loves you as if you were his own
mother; and I--I would like him to--to think tenderly of me, also. He
will do it when he looks at this picture. [_Taking a miniature from
his pocket._

MRS. HAVERILL. Of me!

HAVERILL. I have never been without it one hour, before, since we were
married. He will recognize it as the one that I have carried through
every campaign, in every scene of danger on the Plains; the one that
has always been with me. He is a fugitive from justice. At times, when
despair might overcome him, this may give him nerve to meet his
future life manfully. It has often nerved me, when I might have failed
without it. Give it to him, and tell him that I send it. [_Giving
her the miniature._] I could not send a kinder message, and he will
understand it. [_