sudden murmur swept the galleries and all eyes were turned on the tall
slender figure of Jefferson Davis as he slowly entered the Senate
Chamber.

"Who is it?" Socola asked.

"Senator Davis--you don't know him?"

"I have never seen him before. He has been quite ill I hear."

"Yes. He's been in bed for the past week suffering agonies from
neuralgia. He lost the sight of one of his eyes from chronic pain caused
by exposure in the service of his country in the northwest."

"Really--I didn't know that."

"He was compelled to remain in a darkened room for months the past year
to save the sight of his remaining eye."

"That accounts for my not having seen him before."

Socola followed the straight military figure with painful interest as he
slowly moved toward his seat greeting with evident weakness his
colleagues as he passed. He was astonished beyond measure at the
personality of the famous leader of the "Southern Conspirators" of whom
he had heard so much. He was the last man in all the crowd he would have
singled out for such a role. The face was too refined, too spiritual,
too purely intellectual for the man of revolution. His high forehead,
straight nose, thin compressed lips and pointed chin belonged to the
poet and dreamer rather than the man of action. The hollow cheek bones
and deeply furrowed mouth told of suffering so acute the sympathy of
every observer was instantly won.

In spite of evident suffering his carriage was erect, dignified, and
graceful. The one trait which fastened the attention from the first and
held it was the remarkable intensity of expression which clothed his
thin muscular face.

"You like him?" Jennie ventured at last.

"I can't say, Miss Barton," was the slowly measured answer. "He is a
remarkably interesting man. I'm surprised and puzzled--"

"Surprised and puzzled at what?"

"Well, you see I know his history. The diplomatist makes it his business
to know the facts in the lives of the leaders of a nation to whose
Government he is accredited. Mr. Davis spent four years at West Point.
He gave seven years of his life to the service of the army in the West.
He carried your flag to victory in Mexico and hobbled home on crutches.
He was one of your greatest Secretaries of War. He sent George B.
McClellan and Robert E. Lee to the Crimea to master European warfare,
organized and developed your army, changed the model of your arms,
introduced the rifled musket and the minie ball. He