The woman turned back into the house as she spoke. This, thought Broadhead, sadly, was the explanation of it all. That letter. He had never examined it. He had held it sacred, but now he felt that he must open it. It might give him some clew as to the whereabouts of the woman. Yet he hesitated. When the woman gave him the key he entered the lonely house. He went upstairs and sat down in Kirke's study, and there, overcoming his hesitation, he read the letter. It was the letter of a weak, hysterical woman, reproaching her husband for his lack of love, his seeming neglect, for her loneliness, and ended by saying that she had gone off with a man who loved her, and that he should never see her again. Kirke's endorsement was brief and as terse as the man's character. "I have been to blame," he had written. "I did love you. I do. God only knows how much. I hope you may be happy. We are about to attack a strong position. I feel sure that after it is over I shall trouble you no more. You can marry the man--damn him!--and be happy." How characteristic that was, thought Jack Broadhead, as he read,--that last touch! He cursed the man yet spared the woman. For a long time Broadhead sat there in that house, thinking, thinking, thinking. He wondered if he were the only mourner for poor Kirke. The twilight and then the darkness came stealing over the town, and still he sat there. By and by he heard a step--a hesitant, faltering step--in the hallway. He remembered now that he had left the street door open. He sat still and listened. The step mounted the stairs. It came along the short hall and stopped at the entrance of the library. He sat by the open window. The wandering figure was that of a woman. She saw the soldier silhouetted in the darkness against the light from the street lamp outside. "Robert! Robert!" she cried. "You have come back! Thank God!" Broadhead rose to his feet. "No," he said, quietly, "it is not Colonel Kirke." "Mr. Broadhead!" exclaimed the woman. "Yes, Mrs.--Mrs.--er--Allen, is it not?" "No, no!" she shrieked, shrinking back. "My--my husband?" "Do you mean Colonel Kirke?" "Yes. I have no other." "And Allen?" "He has cast me off, turned me away." "Haven't you heard?" "I have heard nothing. I have been blind--in hell--since----" "Yes, I know." "But Robert?" "He is dead." The woman sank into a chair, shuddering. "When? How? Did he get my letter?" "Yes. He was killed at the capture of a little hill in North Carolina on the day he received your letter. Here it is." "Did he say anything before----" "There is a message written in it." "Give it me." Striking a light at the gas-bracket, Broadhead handed her the letter. She read it through dry-eyed while he watched her. She had been a pretty, sweet, dainty, attractive-looking little woman, now she was a haggard, broken wreck. "And he was killed by the enemy?" she asked at last.