hem. We got awfully friendly. And like a fool I told him of my
quarrel with Lucy."

"LIKE a fool," says Colonel Tom, nodding his head. "Go on."

"There isn't much more to tell," says the doctor, "except that I made
a worse idiot of myself yet, and left McMakin about two o'clock in the
afternoon, as near as I can recollect. Somewhere about ten o'clock that
night I went home. Lucy was gone. I haven't seen her since."

"Dave," says Colonel Tom, "did McMakin happen to mention to you, that
day, just why he was in Chicago?"

"I suppose so," says the doctor. "I don't know. Maybe not. That was
twenty years ago. Why?"

"Because," says Colonel Tom, very grim and quiet, "because your first
thought as to his intention when he met you in the bar was MY idea
also. I thought he went to Chicago to settle with you. You see, I got to
Chicago that same afternoon."

"The same day?"

"Yes. We were to have come together. But I missed the train, and he got
there a day ahead of me. He was waiting at the hotel for me to join him,
and then we were going to look you up together. He found you first and I
never did find you."

"But I don't exactly understand," says the doctor. "You say he had the
idea of shooting me."

"I don't understand everything myself," says Colonel Tom. "But I do
understand that Prent McMakin must have played some sort of a two-faced
game. He never said a word to me about having seen you.

"Listen," he goes on. "When you and Lucy ran away it nearly killed our
grandfather. In fact, it finally did kill him. When we got Lucy's letter
that told you were in Chicago I went up to bring her back home. We
didn't know what we were going to do, McMakin and I, but we were both
agreed that you needed killing. And he swore that he would marry Lucy
anyhow, even--"

"MARRY HER!" sings out the doctor, "but we WERE married."

"Dave," Colonel Tom says very slow and steady, "you keep SAYING you were
married. But it's strange--it's right STRANGE about that marriage."

And he looked at the doctor hard and close, like he would drag the truth
out of him, and the doctor met his look free and open. You would of
thought Colonel Tom was saying with his look: "You MUST tell me the
truth." And the doctor with his was answering: "I HAVE told you the
truth."

"But, Tom," says the doctor, "that letter she wrote you from Chicago
must--"

"Do you know what Lucy wrote?" interrupts Colonel Tom. "I remember
exactly. It was simply: 'FORGIVE ME.