“Do you think that God looks at his wretched ones differently from what men do? That He will have tenderness for one so sorry—that He will even find place— But my mother is there! my father! Oh, that makes it fearful to go—to meet— But it was my father who led me into this—only he did not know— There! I will think only of God. “Good by—good by—good—” That was all. It ended, as it began, without name and without date,—the final heart-throbs of a soul, awakened to its own act when it was quite too late. A piteous memorial which daunted each one of us as we read it, and when finished, drew us all together in the hall out of the sight and hearing of the two persons most intimately concerned in it. Possibly because all had one thought—a thrilling one, which the major was the first to give utterance to. “The man she killed was buried under the name of Wallace. How’s that, if he was her husband, William?” An officer we had not before noted was standing near the front door. He came forward at this and placed a second telegram in the superintendent’s hand. It was from the same source as the one previously received and appeared to settle this very question. “I have just learned that the man married was not the one who kept store in Owosso, but his brother William, who afterward died in Klondike. It is Wallace whose death you are investigating.” “What snarl is here?” asked the major. “I think I understand,” I ventured to put in. “Her husband was the one left on the road by the brother who staggered into camp for aid. He was a weak man—the weaker of the two she said—and probably died, while Wallace, after seemingly collapsing, recovered. This last she did not know, having failed to read the whole of the newspaper slip which told about it, and so when she saw some one with the Pfeiffer air and figure and was told later that a Mr. Pfeiffer was waiting to see her, she took it for granted that it was her husband, believing positively that Wallace was dead. The latter, moreover, may have changed to look more like his brother in the time that had elapsed.” “A possible explanation which adds greatly to the tragic aspects of the situation. She was probably a widow when she touched the fatal spring. Who will tell the man inside there? It will be his crowning blow.” XXVI. RUDGE