d the door, and knocked.
No answer came. He opened it softly, and entered. There burned the lamp
on the table--there stood the vacant chairs--he was alone in the
deserted room.

"Virginia!"

He started at his own voice, which sounded, in the hollow apartment,
like the whisper of a ghost.

He was proceeding still farther, wondering at the stillness, terrified
by his own forebodings, feeling in his appalled heart the contrast
between this night, and this strange, furtive visit, and the happy
nights, and the many happy visits, he had made to his dear friends there
only a few short months before,--pausing to assure himself that he was
not walking in a dream,--when he heard a footstep, a flutter, and saw,
spring towards him through the door, pale as an apparition, Virginia.
Speechless with emotion, she could not utter his name, but she testified
the joy with which she welcomed him by throwing herself, not into his
arms, but upon them, as he extended his hands to greet her.

"What has happened?" said Penn.

"O, my father!" said the girl. And she bowed her face upon his arm,
clinging to him as if he were her brother, her only support.

"Where is he?" asked Penn, alarmed, and trembling with sympathy for that
delicate, agitated, fair young creature, whom sorrow had so changed
since he saw her last.

"They have taken him--the soldiers!" she said.

And by these words Penn knew that he had come too late.

XXII.

_STACKRIDGE'S COAT AND HAT GET ARRESTED._

The outrage had been committed not more than twenty minutes before. Toby
had followed his old master, to see what was to be done with him, and
Virginia and her sister were in the street before the house, awaiting
the negro's return, when Penn arrived.

"You could have done no good, even if you had come sooner," said
Virginia. "There is but one man who could have prevented this cruelty."

"Why not send for him?"

"Alas! he left town this very day. He is a secessionist; but he has
great influence, and appears very friendly to us."

Penn started, and looked at her keenly.

"His name?"

"Augustus Bythewood."

Penn recoiled.

"What's the matter?"

"Virginia, that man is thy worst enemy? I did not tell thee how I
learned that the arrests were to be made. But I will!" And he told her
all.

"O," said she, "if I had only believed what my heart has always said of
that man, and trusted less to my eyes and ears, he would never have
deceived me! If he, then