spring.

He must speak his love. His heart would burst with its beating. His mate
must know. And she had returned to Richmond with a bitterness against
the North that was something new in the development of her character.

The newspapers of Richmond had published an elaborate account of the
sacking of her father's house, the smashing of its furniture and theft
of its valuables. It had created a profound sensation. There was no
mistaking the passion with which she had told this story.

He had laughed at first over the fun of winning the fairest little rebel
in the South and carrying his bride away a prize of war, against the
combined efforts of his Southern rivals. His love and pride had not
doubted for a moment that her heart would yield to the man she loved no
matter what uniform he might wear at the end of this war.

He couldn't make up his mind to ask her to marry him until she should
know his real name and his true principles.

What would she do if the truth were revealed? His heart fairly stopped
its beating at the thought. The fall of Richmond he now regarded as a
practical certainty. The _Merrimac_ had proven a vain hope to the
Confederacy.

McClellan was landing his magnificent army on the Peninsula and
preparing to sweep all before him. McDowell's forty thousand men were
moving on his old line of march straight from Washington. Their two
armies would unite before the city and circle it with an invincible wall
of fire and steel. Fremont, Milroy and Banks were sweeping through the
valley of the Shenandoah. Their armies would unite, break the
connections of the Confederacy at Lynchburg and the South would be
crushed.

That this would all be accomplished within thirty days he had the most
positive assurances from Washington. So sure was Miss Van Lew of
McClellan's triumphant entry into Richmond she had put her house in
order for his reception. Her parlor had been scrupulously cleaned. Its
blinds were drawn and the room dark, but a flag staff was ready and a
Union standard concealed in one of her feather beds. Over the old house
on Church Hill the emblem of the Nation would first be flung to the
breeze in the conquered Capital of the Confederacy.

The certainty of his discovery in the rush of the Union army into the
city was now the nightmare which haunted his imagination.

He could fight the Confederate Government on even terms. He asked no
odds. His life was on the hazard. Something more than the life