"Yes." "No, I hadn't forgotten." "It was very noble; and so delicately chivalrous. It seems as if one who did such things would surely be helped in his own day of misfortune. But that doesn't often happen, I'm afraid." "No," Constance assented, with a sigh; and Myra went back to the question of identity. "I suppose there is no possible chance that Tommie may have been mistaken?" Constance shook her head. "I think not; he saw that I was troubled about it, and he would have strained a point to comfort me if the facts had given him leave. But I shall be quite sure before I answer Dick's message." With that thought in mind, and with no hope behind it, Constance waylaid her father in the hall the next morning as he was about to go out. "Poppa, I want you to do something for me; no, not that"--the elderly man was feeling in his pockets for his check-book--"it is something very different, this time; different and--and rather dreadful. You remember the suicide you read about, yesterday morning?" "Did I read about one? Oh, yes; the man that shot himself down on the Platte, or was it Cherry Creek? The fellow I thought might be Dick's friend. What about it?" "It's that. We ought to make sure of it for Dick's sake, you know. Won't you go to the coroner's office and see if it is Mr. Jeffard? It's a horrible thing to ask you to do, but"-- There was grim reminiscence in the old pioneer's smile. "It won't be the first one I've seen that died with his boots on. I'll go and locate your claim for you." She kissed him good-by, but he came back from the gate to say: "Hold on, here; I don't know your Mr. Jeffard from a side of sole leather. How am I going to identify him?" "You've seen him once," she explained. "Do you remember the man who sat next to me the night we went to hear 'The Bohemian Girl'?" "The thirsty one that you and Myra made a bet on? Yes, I recollect him." "I don't think he was thirsty. Would you know him if you were to see him again?" "I guess maybe I would; I've seen him half a dozen times since,--met him out here on the sidewalk the next morning. Is that your man?" "That was Mr. Jeffard," she affirmed, turning away that he might not see the tears that welled up unbidden. "All right; I'll go and identify him for you." So he said, and so he meant to do; but it proved to be a rather exciting day at the Mining Exchange, and he forgot the commission until he was about to board a homeward-bound car in the evening. Then he found that he was too late. The body of the suicide had been shipped East in accordance with telegraphic instructions received at noon. When he made his report to Constance, she fell back upon Tommie's assurance, and sent the delayed answer to Bartrow's message, telling him that his friend was dead.