ng along the
hall again, and appears at the parlor with a telegram. "They sent it
after you, sir," is the explanation. Abbot, with curious foreboding,
opens, and hurriedly reads the words,

"Rix also deserted; is believed to have gone to Boston."

"Viva!" he exclaims, "the man you gave that packet to was Rix, another
deserter. My God! Do you _know_ where Hollins is?"

But Viva Winthrop has fallen back on the sofa, covering her face with
her hands.

X.

Major Abbot's stay in Boston is but brief. He had a hurried conference
with the police late at night, after his painful interview with Miss
Winthrop, and there is lively effort on part of those officials to run
down the bulky stranger to whom she had intrusted that packet. There has
been a family conference, too, between the elders of the households of
Abbot and Winthrop, and the engagement is at an end. Coming in suddenly
from his club, Mr. Winthrop entered the parlor immediately after the
receipt of the telegram, and he is overwhelmed with consternation at the
condition of affairs. He has insisted on a full statement from Viva's
lips, and to her mother the story has been told. She withholds no point
that is at all material, for her pride has been humbled to the dust in
the revelation that has come to her. She is not the first woman, nor is
she at all liable to be the last, to undertake the task of championing a
man against the verdict of his associates, and the story is simple
enough. With his sad, subdued manner, his air of patient suffering, and
his unobtrusive but unerring attentions, Mr. Hollins had succeeded in
making a deep impression while they were abroad. Not that her heart was
involved; she protests against that; but her sympathy, her pity, was
aroused. He had never inflicted his confidences upon her, but had deftly
managed to rouse her curiosity, and make her question. By the time they
returned to America she believed him to be a sensitive gentleman, poor,
talented, struggling, and yet burdened with the support of helpless
relatives, too distant of kin for her father's notice. She had come back
all aflame with patriotic fervor, too; and his glowing words and
soldierly longings had inspired her with the belief that here was a man
who only needed a start and fair treatment to enable him to rise to
distinction in his country's service. Through her father's influence he
was commissioned in the--th, then being organized, and in her friendship
she had