ever put his foot in this room before."

Then Mr. Peacocke told the story, beginning with all those incidents of
the woman's life which had seemed to be so cruel both to him and to others
at St. Louis before he had been in any degree intimate with her. Then
came the departure of the two men, and the necessity for pecuniary
assistance, which Mr. Peacocke now passed over lightly, saying nothing
specially of the assistance which he himself had rendered. "And she was
left quite alone?" asked the Doctor.

"Quite alone."

"And for how long?"

"Eighteen months had passed before we heard any tidings. Then there came
news that Colonel Lefroy was dead."

"The husband?"

"We did not know which. They were both Colonels."

"And then?"

"Did he tell you that I went down into Mexico?"

"Never mind what he told me. All that he told me were lies. What you
tell me I shall believe. But tell me everything."

There was a tone of complete authority in the Doctor's voice, but mixed
with this there was a kindliness which made the schoolmaster determined
that he would tell everything as far as he knew how. "When I heard that
one of them was dead, I went away down to the borders of Texas, in order
that I might learn the truth."

"Did she know that you were going?"

"Yes;--I told her the day I started."

"And you told her why?"

"That I might find out whether her husband were still alive."

"But----" The Doctor hesitated as he asked the next question. He knew,
however, that it had to be asked, and went on with it. "Did she know that
you loved her?" To this the other made no immediate answer. The Doctor
was a man who, in such a matter, was intelligent enough, and he therefore
put his question in another shape. "Had you told her that you loved her?"

"Never,--while I thought that other man was living."

"She must have guessed it," said the Doctor.

"She might guess what she pleased. I told her that I was going, and I
went."

"And how was it, then?"

"I went, and after a time I came across the very man who is here now, this
Robert Lefroy. I met him and questioned him, and he told me that his
brother had been killed while fighting. It was a lie."

"Altogether a lie?" asked the Doctor.

"How altogether?"

"He might have been wounded and given over for dead. The brother might
have thought him to be dead."

"I do not think so. I believe it to have been a plot in order that the
man might get rid of his w