All these things seemed to dull and stupefy me rather than excite.  I could not understand.

“If I killed him,” said I, finally, “how would it better her case?  Moreover, before I could take any more risk, I must go back to Virginia.  My mother needs me there most sadly.”

“Yes, and Miss Grace Sheraton needs you there sadly, as well,” he retorted.  “Go back, then, and mend your promises, and do some of those duties which you now begin to remember.  You have proved yourself a man of no honor.  I stigmatize you now as a coward.”

There seemed no tinder left in my spirit to flame at this spark.  “You speak freely to your prisoner, Colonel Meriwether,” I said, slowly, at length.  “There is time yet for many risks—­chances for many things.  But now I think you owe it to me to tell me how this matter was arranged.”

“Very well, then.  Belknap asked me for permission to try his chance long ago—­before I came west to Laramie.  I assigned him to bring her through to me.  He was distracted at his failure to do so.  He has been out with parties all the summer, searching for you both, and has not been back at Laramie more than ten days.  Oh, we all knew why you did not come back to the settlements.  When we came in he guessed all that you know.  He knew that all the world would talk.  And like a man he asked the right to silence all that talk forever.”

“And she agreed?  Ellen Meriwether accepted him on such terms?”

“It is arranged,” said he, not answering me directly, “and it removes at once all necessity for any other arrangement.  As for you, you disappear.  It will be announced all through the Army that she and Lieutenant Belknap were married at Leavenworth before they started West, and that it was they two, and not you and my daughter, who were lost.”

“And Belknap was content to do this?” I mused.  “He would do this after Ellen told him that she loved me—­”

“Stop!” thundered Colonel Meriwether.  “I have told you all that is necessary.  I will add that he said to me, like the gentleman he is, that in case my daughter asked it, he would marry her and leave her at once, until she of her own free will asked him to return.  There is abundant opportunity for swift changes in the Army.  What seems to you absurd will work out in perfectly practical fashion.”

“Yes,” said I, “in fashion perfectly practical for the ruin of her life.  You may leave mine out of the question.”

“I do, sir,” was his icy reply.  “She told you to your face, and in my hearing, that you had deceived her, that you must go.”

“Yes,” I said, dully, “I did deceive her, and there is no punishment on earth great enough to give me for that—­except to have no word from her!”

“You are to go at once.  I put it beyond you to understand Belknap’s conduct in this matter.”

“He is a gentleman,” I said, “and fit to love her.  I think none of us needs praise or blame for that.”