“It’s simple enough—­a home-made epigram.  People who tell nothing but the truth are easiest made to believe a lie.  The Spragues had heard of you as ignorant, and believed it.  You can’t blame them for that.”

“I don’t blame them because it was a lie.  I blame them because it was the truth.  I don’t care a straw how many lies are told about me—­it’s the ill-natured truth I object to.”

“I’m afraid that you will have a hard time in life if you like lies better than the truth.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then I don’t understand English.”

“You don’t understand me.”

“Ah, yes I do, papa.  I do understand you.  I know that at this moment you are doing something that you are ashamed of—­something that later you will bitterly repent.  You are carrying on now through pride what you began in wrath.  Stop where you are.  The dead can not be avenged.  That’s a barbarous code.  Remember, in all the petty irritations of the past, when you have been hurt by your neighbors, you were never so triumphant as when you surprised those who injured you by a magnanimous return—­”

“There, I made an agreement with you that we should not speak of these things.  I mean it.  I find that you take advantage of me.  I shall be banished from the house if you do not keep to your bargain.”

Kate sighed.  She had hoped that the early banter was paving the way for a reconciliation.  She took up some work and tried to busy her hands.

“Suppose you read me something?  You haven’t read in an age.”

“What shall it be?”

“Oh, something from Dickens—­anything you like.”

“Very well, I shall show you a counterfeit presentment of yourself,” and, with an arch-smile, she began to read from The Chimes.

He listened soberly until the last page was turned, and then, rising, said abstractedly: 

“I sha’n’t see you for a few days.  I wish you would remain at home as much as possible.  Get some of the neighbors’ girls to keep you company, if you’re lonesome.”

“Oh, I shall not be lonesome.  I shall have too much to do—­too much to think about.”

He laughed.  “You are enough like your father, my girl, to pass for him.  Very well, you’ll be penitent enough when I come back.”

He was gone in the morning, as he had said, and she was free to keep her appointment with Elkins.  He was waiting for her when she readied the hotel.

“Well?” she cried, breathlessly.

“I saw him.”

She seized the blushing lad’s two hands.  “Ah, you splendid follow!  And then?—­”

“He wrote this note for you,” and he handed her an envelope with her own name written on it in an uneven, uncertain scrawl.  She tore it open and read: 

“DEAR MADAM:  I can not understand why there should be any difficulty in finding what became of Sprague and his party.  We all reached the lines together, but, as I was hit by a bullet in the head at the moment of rescue, I knew nothing of their movements after reaching the Union lines.  I, too, am interested in the young man.  I should like to see you or some of his friends at once, as I suspect foul play of some sort.