tes ago."

As bad as that! But I did not despair. I did not dare to. I had
staked everything on this interview, and I was not going to lose
its promised results from any lack of effort on my own part.

"Let me see him," I repeated.

I was taken in. The few persons I saw clustered about a narrow cot
in one corner gave way and I was cut to the heart to see that they
did this not so much out of consideration for me or my errand there
as from the consciousness that their business at the bedside of
this dying man was over. He was on the point of breathing his
last. I pressed forward, and after one quick scrutiny of the closed
eyes and pale face I knelt at his side and whispered a name into
his ear. It was that of Veronica Moore.

He started; they all saw it. On the threshold of death, some
emotion--we never knew what one--drew him back for an instant,
and the pale cheek showed a suspicion of color. Though the eyes
did not open, the lips moved, and I caught these words:

"Kept word--told no one--she was so--"

And that was all. He died the next instant.

Well! I was woefully done up by this sudden extinction of all my
hopes. They had been extravagant, no doubt, but they had sustained
me through all my haps and mishaps, trials and dangers, till now,
here, they ended with the one inexorable fact-death. Was I doomed
to defeat, then? Must I go back to the major with my convictions
unchanged but with no fresh proof, no real evidence to support them?
I certainly must. With the death of this man, all means of reaching
the state of Mrs. Jeffrey's mind immediately preceding her marriage
were gone. I could never learn now what to know would make a man
of me and possibly save Cora Tuttle.

Bending under this stroke of Providence, I passed out. A little
boy was sobbing at the tent door. I stared at him curiously, and
was hurrying on, when I felt myself caught by the hand.

"Take me with you," cried a choked and frightened voice in my ear.
"I have no friend here, now he is gone; take me back to Washington."

Washington! I turned and looked at the lad who, kneeling in the
hot sand at the door of the tent, was clutching me with imploring
hands.

"Who are you?" I asked; "and how came you here? Do you belong to
the army?"

"I helped care for his horse," he whispered. "He found me smuggled
on board the train--for I was bound to go to the war--and he was
sorry for me and used to give me bits of his own ratio