Then Brant spoke.
"Naida," he said, gravely, "I have come back, as I said I would, and
surely I read welcome in your eyes?"
"Yes."
"And I have come to say that there is no longer any shadow of the dead
between us."
She looked up quickly, her hands clasped, her cheeks flushing. "Are
you sure? Perhaps you misunderstand; perhaps you mistake my meaning."
"I know it all," he answered, soberly, "from the lips of Hampton."
"You have seen him? Oh, Lieutenant Brant, please tell me the whole
truth. I have missed him so much, and since the day he rode away to
Cheyenne not one word to explain his absence has come back to me. You
cannot understand what this means, how much he has become to me through
years of kindness."
"You have heard nothing?"
"Not a word."
Brant drew a long, deep breath. He had supposed she knew this. At
last he said gravely:
"Naida, the truth will prove the kindest message, I think. He died in
that unbroken ring of defenders clustered about General Custer on the
bluffs of the Little Big Horn."
Her slight figure trembled so violently that he held her close within
his arms.
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