drew near for him to go back to the
war, a state that was not quite estrangement, and yet something very like
it, set in. Poor Clarence. Doubts bothered him, and he dared not give
them voice. By night he would plan his speeches,--impassioned, imploring.
To see her in her marvellous severity was to strike him dumb. Horrible
thought! Whether she loved him, whether she did not love him, she would
not give him up. Through the long years of their lives together, he would
never know. He was not a weak man now, was Clarence Colfax. He was merely
a man possessed of a devil, enchained by the power of self-repression
come upon her whom he loved.

And day by day that power seemed to grow more intense,--invulnerable.
Among her friends and in the little household it had raised Virginia to
heights which she herself did not seem to realize. She was become the
mistress of Bellegarde. Mrs. Colfax was under its sway, and doubly
miserable because Clarence would listen to her tirades no more.

"When are you to be married?" she had ventured to ask him once. Nor had
she taken pains to hide the sarcasm in her voice.

His answer, bringing with it her remembrance of her husband at certain
times when it was not safe to question him, had silenced her. Addison
Colfax had not been a quiet man. When he was quiet he was dangerous.

"Whenever Virginia is ready, mother," he had replied. Whenever Virginia
was ready! He knew in his heart that if he were to ask her permission to
send for Dr, Posthelwaite to-morrow that she would say yes. Tomorrow
came,--and with it a great envelope, an official, answer to Clarence's
report that he was fit for duty once more. He had been exchanged. He was
to proceed to Cairo, there to await the arrival of the transport
Indianapolis, which was to carry five hundred officers and men from
Sandusky Prison, who were going back to fight once more for the
Confederacy. O that they might have seen the North, all those brave men
who made that sacrifice. That they might have realized the numbers and
the resources and the wealth arrayed against them!

It was a cool day for September, a perfect day, an auspicious day, and
yet it went the way of the others before it. This was the very fulness of
the year, the earth giving out the sweetness of her maturity, the corn in
martial ranks, with golden plumes nodding. The forest still in its glory
of green. They walked in silence the familiar paths, and Alfred, clipping
the late roses for t