They had all been present by invitation of the civil authorities at a very dramatic affair during the late afternoon,--the final lifting of the veil that hid from public view the "strange, eventful history" of the Lascelles tragedy. Cram was the spokesman by common consent. "With the exception of the Dawsons," said he, "none of the parties implicated knew up to the hour of his or her examination that any one of the others was to appear." Mrs. Dawson, eager to save her own pretty neck, had told her story without reservation. Dawson knew nothing. The story had been wrung from her piecemeal, but was finally told in full, and in the presence of the officers and civilians indicated. She had married in April, '65, to the scorn of her people, a young Yankee officer attached to the commissary department. She had starved all through the war. She longed for life, luxury, comforts. She had nothing but her beauty, he nothing but his pay. The extravagances of a month swamped him; the drink and desperation of the next ruined him. He maintained her in luxury at the best hotel only a few weeks, then all of his and much of Uncle Sam's money was gone. Inspection proved him a thief and embezzler. He fled, and she was abandoned to her own resources. She had none but her beauty and a gift of penmanship which covered the many sins of her orthography. She was given a clerkship, but wanted more money, and took it, blackmailing a quartermaster. She imposed on Waring, but he quickly found her out and absolutely refused afterwards to see her at all. She was piqued and angered, "a woman scorned," but not until he joined Battery "X" did opportunity present itself for revenge. She had secured a room under Mrs. Doyle's reputable roof, to be near the barracks, where she could support herself by writing for Mrs. Doyle and blackmailing those whom she lured, and where she could watch _him_, and, to her eager delight, she noted and prepared to make much of his attentions to Madame Lascelles. Incidentally, too, she might inveigle the susceptible Lascelles himself, on the principle that there's no fool like an old fool. Mrs. Doyle lent herself eagerly to the scheme. The letters began to pass to and fro again. Lascelles was fool enough to answer, and when, all on a sudden, Mrs. Doyle's "long-missing relative," as she called him, turned up, a pensioner on her charity, it was through the united efforts of the two women he got a situation as cab-driver at the stable up at the eastern skirt of the town. Dawson had enlisted to keep from starving, and, though she had no use for him as a husband, he would do to fetch and carry, and he dare not disobey. Twice when Doyle was battery officer of the day did this strangely-assorted pair of women entertain Lascelles at supper and fleece him out of what money he had. Then came Philippes with Lascelles in Mike's cab, as luck would have it, but they could not fleece Philippes. Old Lascelles was rapidly succumbing to Nita's fascinations