ties of blood, and been a constructive
murderer, only withheld from the actual crime by circumstances over
which he had no control. He had murdered character, and would have
murdered the happiness of a poor, weak, unoffending woman, who had the
double claim of youth and of kindred blood, demanding consideration at
his hands. He had trifled with the public service and defrauded the
government, as too many others were and have since been doing on every
hand--draining his Mother Country of her life-blood in her very hour of
need, and so aiding to commit that most deadly and horrible of
crimes--_matricide_. Could this man still have one virtue remaining? Let
this be seen.

He reached New York on Monday night, after a stay of a few hours at
Albany. What he did at the latter place has never been known and perhaps
will never be. On Tuesday, for an hour, he was at Camp Lyon, and some of
the other officers saw him walking backward and forward, on the piazza
of the hotel, in conversation with the Adjutant. Once or twice their
voices were heard to rise louder than good-feeling would have allowed,
though the words they uttered were not caught by any listener. Were they
haggling, as robbers have been known to do after successful operations
in plundering, over the division of the spoils? At nightfall the Colonel
returned to the city, and Camp Lyon and the Two Hundredth Regiment saw
him no more.

The morning papers of a day or two after announced that the Two
Hundredth Regiment, which seemed to have been lagging in the way of
recruits, for a few days before, had been abandoned as a separate
organization and would be consolidated with the One Hundred and
Ninety-ninth, then in the course of successful formation at a camp
within half a mile of its disbanded rival. With this addition, the One
Hundred and Ninety-ninth would be full and able to leave within a week.
The Colonel of the Two Hundredth, it was added, had accepted a
commission on staff-service, and had already left for the seat of war.

All this Was true, except so much of it as was mere speculation for the
future. Whether the One Hundred and Ninety-ninth did profit by the
consolidation and move within the week--whether any money, and if so how
much, was received by those who "sold out" the Two Hundredth--and
whether the One Hundred and Ninety-ninth (_not_ including Lieut.
Woodruff, who threw up his commission in disgust) entered and honored
the service, or was yet frittered