“My son shot Wesley! oh no, no; it can not be; or, if he did, it was because his own life was in peril.  Ah! no, no, Mr. President, do not believe this.  I know my son.  I know the misery he endured in Wesley’s company; endured like a hero; endured like a Sprague.  He must have been in peril of his life.”

“Dear madam, I feel for you.  I feel with you, but these facts are all in the possession of the Secretary of War.  Mr. Boone will no doubt give you all the details.  If it can be made to seem as you say, have no fear that I will wink at mere revenge, or make the machinery of justice an instrument of family feuds.  Get your lawyer; have the matter investigated, and rely upon me for every proper clemency and aid in your hard lot.”

She had arisen long before, and, recognizing this as a dismissal, she bowed, unable to speak, and, with blinded eyes, staggered toward the two steps leading upward from the room.  She would have fallen had the ready arm of the President not been near to support her.  In the anteroom he said, huskily: 

“Captain, send an orderly to accompany this lady to her carriage.”

Merry was in the carriage.  One glance at Mrs. Sprague’s face told that dire news had been heard.  She did not ask a question, but, embracing and supporting the sobbing mother, awaited patiently for the dreaded revelation.  When at length the miserable story came in gaspings and sobs, the spinster exhibited an unexpected firmness.

“I don’t believe a word of it.  If Jack shot Wesley, it was because he was in some sort of treacherous business.  You may depend upon it, that, when we get the true story, Jack’s part will prove him in the right.  I am going this instant to Boone to learn his source of information.  He can have nothing but rumors.”

“I will go.  It is better for me to see Mr. Boone.  He will not venture to misrepresent to me.”

At Willards, where Boone was stopping, the ladies were obliged to wait a long time, and, in the end, it was Kate who appeared before them in deep black, with a half-yearning, half-defiant expression in the sadly worn face.  They would never have recognized her, and, as it was, Merry started with a slight scream as the dark figure stopped before them.

“Papa begs to be excused.  He supposes that you want to hear the particulars of the—­the affair at Rosedale, and bids me tell you.”

“O Kate, Kate, it is not true! it can not be true.  Oh, you who knew Jack so well, you know that he never could have—­have—­”

Kate had seized a chair and drawn it before the two who sat on one of the long sofas that filled without adorning the vast hotel parlor, dim even at noonday in its semi-subterranean light.

“Yes, Mrs. Sprague, your son shot Wesley deliberately; shot him as deliberately as if I should draw a pistol and take your life now and here.”

“And—­and killed him?”

“He never spoke again.  He—­he—­ah!  I can not, I can not!  We brought him here.  His body is in the cemetery, waiting the military formalities.”