ound tied to her?"

Either from preoccupation or a dazed condition of mind, he seemed to
forget that Miss Tuttle had owned to tying on this pistol; and that
nothing but her word went to prove that this was done before and not
after the shot had been delivered in the Moore house library. I
thought I understood him and was certain that I sympathized with his
condition; but in the ears of those less amiably disposed toward him,
his statements had lost force and the denial went for little.

Meanwhile a fact which all had noted and commented on had recurred to
my mind and caused me to ask a brother officer who was walking out
beside me what he thought of Mr. Moore's absence from an inquiry
presumably of such importance to all members of this family.

The fellow laughed and said:

"Old Dave has lost none of his peculiarities in walking into his
fortune. This is his day at the cemetery. Didn't you know that?
He will let nothing on earth get in the way of his pilgrimage to
that spot on the twenty-third of May, much less so trivial an
occurrence as an inquest over the remains of his nearest relative."

I felt my gorge rise; then a thought struck me and I asked how long
the old gentleman kept up his watch.

"From sunrise to sundown, the boys say. I never saw him there myself.
My beat lies in an opposite direction."

I left him and started for Rock Creek Cemetery. There were two good
hours yet before sundown and I resolved to come upon Uncle David at
his post.

It took just one hour and a quarter to get there by the most direct
route I could take. Five minutes more to penetrate the grounds to
where a superb vehicle stood, drawn by two of the finest horses I
had seen in Washington for many a long day. As I was making my way
around this equipage I came upon a plot in a condition of upheaval
preparatory to new sodding and the planting of several choice shrubs.
In the midst of the sand thus exposed a single head-stone rose. On
his knees beside this simple monument I saw the figure of Uncle
David, dressed in his finest clothes and showing in his oddly
contorted face the satisfaction of great prosperity, battling with
the dissatisfaction of knowing that one he had so loved had not
lived to share his elevation. He was rubbing away the mold from the
name which, by his own confession, was the only one to which his
memory clung in sympathy or endearment. At his feet lay an open
basket, in which I detected the remains of