our group of conspirators--never!"

"Not if I ask it, because I love you?"

[Illustration: "Betty glanced at the stolid, set face and firm lips."]

Her brown eyes sparkled with anger:

"You'll not find this a joke!"

"That's why I treat it seriously, my dear," was the firm reply. "If I
could throw up my position in this war on the sudden impulse of my
sweetheart, I'd be ashamed to look a man in the face--and you would
despise me!"

"If your Commander succeeds to-day in bringing disaster to our army I'll
despise you for aiding him----"

"Let's not discuss it--please, dear!" he begged with a frown.

"As you please," was the cold reply.

They rode on in silence, broken only by the increasing roar of the great
guns at Manassas. Betty glanced at the stolid, set face and firm lips.
Her anger steadily rose with every throb of Pope's cannon. Each low
thunder peal on the horizon now was a cry for help from dying mangled
thousands and the man she loved refusing to hear.

Suddenly the picture of his brother flashed before her vision, the
high-strung, clean young spirit, chivalrous, daring, fighting for what
he knew to be right--right because right is right, and wrong is wrong.

She looked at John Vaughan with a feeling of fierce anger. Between the
two men she preferred the enemy who was fighting in the open to win or
die. Her soul went out to Ned in a wave of tender admiration. Her wrath
against his brother steadily rose.

Suddenly she drew her rein:

"You need come no further. I'll ride back home alone."

He bit his lips without turning and was silent. She touched her horse
with her whip and galloped swiftly toward Washington.

* * * * *

The last day of Pope's brief campaign ended in the overwhelming disaster
of the second battle of Bull Run. The sound of his cannon reached
McClellan's ears, but the organizer of the Army of the Potomac, though
ordered to do so, never joined his rival.

Once more the army of the Union was hurled back on Washington in panic,
confusion and appalling disaster. Lee and Jackson had crushed Pope's
hosts with a rapidity and case that struck terror to the heart of the
Nation. General Pope lost fifteen thousand men in a single battle. Lee
and Jackson lost less than half as many.

The storm broke over McClellan's head at Washington on his arrival.
Stanton and Halleck and Pope accused him of treachery. The hot heads
demanded his arrest and trial by court-