ave no less a heart for a man if she loved him."

"If she loved him!" echoed Peyton, and began to think.

"Ay, and a thousand times more heart, loving him as a woman loves a
man." Mr. Valentine spoke knowingly, as one acquainted by enviable
experience with the measure of such love.

"As a woman loves a man!" repeated Peyton. Suddenly he turned to
Valentine. "Tell me, does she love any man so, now?" Peyton did not
know the relation in which Elizabeth and Major Colden stood to each
other.

"I can't say she _loves_ one," replied Valentine, judicially,
"though--"

But Peyton had heard enough.

"By heaven, I'll try it!" he cried. "Such miracles have happened! And
I have almost an hour!"

Old Valentine blinked at him, with stupid lack of perception. "What is
it, sir?"

"I shall try it!" was Peyton's unenlightening answer. "There's one
chance. And you can help me!"

"The devil I can!" replied Valentine, rising from his chair in some
annoyance. "I won't lend aid, I tell you!"

"It won't be 'lending aid.' All I beg is that you ask Miss Elizabeth
to see me alone at once,--and that you'll forget all I've said to you.
Don't stand staring! For Christ's sake, go and ask her to come in!
Don't you know? Only an hour,--less than that, now!"

"But she mayn't come here for the asking," objected the old man,
somewhat dazed by Peyton's petulance.

"She _must_ come here!" cried Harry. "Induce her, beg her, entice
her! Tell her I have a last request to make of my jailer,--no,
excite her curiosity; tell her I have a confession to make, a plot
to disclose,--anything! In heaven's name, go and send her here!"

It was easier to comply with so light a request than to remain
recipient of such torrent-like importunity. "I'll try, sir," said
the peace-loving old man, "but I have no hope," and he hobbled
from the room. He left the door open as he went, and Harry, tortured
by impatience, heard him shuffling over the hall floor to the
dining-room.

Peyton's mind was in a whirl. He glanced at the clock. These were his
thoughts:

"Fifty minutes! To make a woman love me! A proud woman, vain and
wilful, who hates our cause, who detests me! To make her love me! How
shall I begin? Keep your wits now, Harry, my son,--'tis for your life!
How to begin? Why doesn't she come? Damn the clock, how loud it ticks!
I feel each tick. No, 'tis my heart I feel. My God, _will_ she not
come? And the time is going--"

"Well, sir, what is it?"

He look