Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-70.djvu/207

Rh

the war was over, and they were mustered out soon afterwards, Broadhead hastened to Philadelphia and drove immediately to Kirke's house. It was empty. There was no sign of life about it. As he stopped on the doorstep in the late afternoon, wondering vaguely what had happened and what he should do next, the door of the adjoining house opened and a woman came out, of whom he made inquiry for Mrs. Kirke.

"Mrs. Kirke!" said the woman in surprise. "And who may you be, may I ask?"

"I am—I was—Colonel Kirke's dearest friend."

"Is Colonel Kirke dead?"

"Yes."

"And a good thing too," said the woman.

"Madam," cried Broadhead indignantly, "do you realize what you say?"

"Certainly I do. Don't you know about Mrs. Kirke?"

"No. Is she dead?"

"It would be better if she were," she answered. "She ran away two months ago with a man named Allen, and after she left she sent me a letter enclosing the key of her house and requesting that I give it to Colonel Kirke when he returned from the war. So long as he is gone, I guess you might as well have it. Wait, I'll fetch it."

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 read 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 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. And Kirke's endorsement was as 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