"Oh, no; come out here. A telegram; another Indian massacre, and Bruce badly wounded. Dick saw it first; the news had just come in.”

Uncle Robert had not been very eager of late for daily news. He took the paper, but Aunt Ruth and Kathie came down the stairs at that moment, and the breakfast was brought in.

Kathie was devoting herself to Aunt Ruth, with pretty delicate attentions, "For," said she, "it is so seldom that I have you to myself that I mean to make the most of it." "What makes you all so queer and still?" she asked presently."Fred, what has happened?"

The young man flushed redly and turned a half-frightened face to his uncle.

"It is Fred's secret and mine," said his uncle, coming to the rescue.

Mrs. Alston gave her son a hurried, questioning glance. "You have n't lamed Hero?" cried Kathie. "I want to take Aunt Ruth out. I can count on this day without a rival." And she smiled.

"Try and be back by ten. Will that give you long enough drive?" asked Uncle Robert with gentle gravity. "Oh, yes; will you want the horses?

He let her think so.

night in New York.

They must have had the news last There was a train at ten, and he felt

sure that would bring General Mackenzie.

When they were gone he told Mrs. Alston, who was greatly shocked.

"Oh!" she declared, "Ruth will want to go unless the General started last night. It is very real motherhood to her, Robert."

"He would not go without seeing her. It is an exquisitely tender marriage bond as well," smiling gravely. “I hope the real news may not be as sad. We are so little used to anything of the kind now. I shall walk down to the station and meet the train."

As he supposed, General Mackenzie came. grasped hands in heartfelt sympathy.

"You have seen the word? My poor boy!"

"Just the briefest telegram."

The two

"Badly wounded in the hip and the lung. Conover, these outbreaks are a disgrace to civilization. They must be fought out in a different manner if ever we are to have peace. Ruth

"She does not know."

"Let us hurry home. Of course I must start at once. Every moment seems an age to me."

As they reached the gate they saw the phaeton winding up the drive.

"I am afraid we have grown cowards," General Mackenzie said, with a sad, absent smile. "How will she bear it?" It was a high tribute paid to her motherhood, real only in the diviner part, love.

She saw at once that something had occurred. After her tender greeting, they went up to the chamber of confidences, Aunt Ruth's room.

"What has happened? Oh, you do know, Uncle Robert?" And Kathie studied him with painful interest. "Bruce has been wounded in an Indian skirmish, very badly, they fear."

Kathie turned and went quietly up-stairs.

Some time

after it seemed an hour, but it was not more than ten minutes she heard Aunt Ruth's voice and went to her, to them, standing tenderly in the midst of their sorrow, yet oh, sad irony of fate, quite outside, sheltered in another love!

They were going West immediately. The one comfort in his cup was the exquisite wifely sympathy.

By noon they were gone. How sudden and strange it seemed! Kathie read the papers and then wandered about in a lonely mood, until she bethought herself that she owed Rob a letter.

In the evening's mail came one for Uncle Robert, that caused him anxious study.

"I wish I could see you," the young man wrote. "I feel sometimes as if I should go out of my senses in this blank, dary loneliness. I have given up fighting, everything! Let fate take its course. For the child's sake it is best to keep the wretched secret. Have I shut myself out of home, all love, all sympathy, all trust? When I think of mother and her bitter disappointment in me, harder to bear than any that have gone before, I feel as if I ought to stay quite away from you all. What shall I do? I am so tired of thinking. Decide for me. Whatever way, I shall be quite content. I am not sure but that I can bear the burden better when I know exactly what it is to be."

It was not the yielding Robert Conover had wished for him. Perhaps that was asking too much. It was not penitence in the greater sense, only sorrow and weariness. He must go to him at once, for hours like this were subtly alive to temptation. It was not full salvation, but it is a long way from the city of destruction to the heavenly city.

It would be better to tell his mother now, and let her have the intervening time to get over the shock, yet that would commit Robert to a course without his own volition. He wanted him to choose for the sake of after years. It was a sad puzzle, and he could not sleep, thinking it over, so when morning dawned he rose unrefreshed.

The papers came with fuller details of the massacre, a cruel, cowardly, planned affair, in which several brave lives had been sacrificed. Lieutenant Mackenzie was reported dangerously wounded.

"I am going out to Chicago," Uncle Robert announced. "I think our boy is homesick, and may bring him back." "Let me go with you," cried Fred eagerly.

"But we cannot leave the house alone."

"Why not take us all, then?" inquired Kathie. "Somehow we should be nearer Aunt Ruth."

"I don't know that I could just now," pausing as if to consider.

In old times Mrs. Alston would have been quick to take alarm. Now, she seemed to turn the matter over in her mind leisurely.

“I could n't go on so short a notice,” she said.

“And I shall travel rapidly. We may go somewhere else, Fred, before the summer is over. Cities are not always at their best in heat and dust."

Kathie alone appeared to have a misgiving.

"I hope nothing will happen to Rob," she said. "It seems to me the world has turned gray with trouble."

CHAPTER XIX.

CERTAINLY these few weeks had wrought a great change in Robert Alston. The bright complexion had grown pallid, the eyes were heavy with purple shadows underneath, and the eager, joyous vigor changed to a kind of stolid apathy.

"O my boy!" Mr. Conover exclaimed in genuine distress, "have you been ill?"

66

"No." But the grasp of the hand was lifeless. "That is, I don't sleep much and have wretched headaches. I have n't given up business, though I have been offered a month's vacation."

The tone indicated an impending change, even if he had no distinct plan in view.

"You have never been out of my mind for a moment," said the elder in a tone of warmest sympathy. "I have wanted to come, but I did not know whether I should help or hinder. Robert, you must know by this time that nothing can change our love for you. It may be wounded by coldness, it may stand silently aside when thrust out of confidence, but it is always waiting for you. We can give, but we cannot force you to take. That is your own part, your own work."

He gave his head a little impatient toss and frowned. "Shall we go to a hotel?" he asked. "I have changed my boarding place and have only a little box of a room."

"Yes, that will be better. I am afraid you have not been taking very good care of yourself."

"What does it matter," wearily, "when everything has gone out of life?"