e shot and excitement
last night; I assure you we do not usually have such finales to our
parties."

"I am not naturally timid, thank you," returned Judithe, with a
careless smile, all the more careless that she felt the blue eyes were
regarding her with unusual watchfulness; "one must expect all those
inconveniences in war times, especially when people are located on the
border land, and I hear it is really but a short ride to the coast,
where your enemies have their war vessels for blockade. Did I
understand you to say the military men have come for your friend, the
Federal Captain? What a pity! He danced so well!"

And with the careless smile still on her lips, she passed them and
crossed the hall to the library.

Evilena shook her head and sighed. "_I_ am just broken hearted over
his arrest," she acknowledged, "but it is because--well, it is _not_
merely because he was a good dancer! Gertrude, I--I did something
horrid this morning, I just _could_ not eat my breakfast without
showing my sympathy in some way. You know those last cookies I baked?
Well, I had some of those sent over with his breakfast."

"Poor fellow!" and Delaven shook his head sadly over the fate of
Monroe. Evilena eyed him suspiciously; but his face was all innocence
and sympathy.

"It is terrible," she assented; "poor mama just wept this morning when
we heard of it; of course, if he really proves to be a spy, we should
not care what happened to him; but mama thinks of his mother, and of
his dead brother, and--well, we both prayed for him this morning; it
was all we could do. Kenneth says no one must go near him, and of
course Kenneth knows what is best; but we are both hoping with all our
hearts that he had nothing to do with that spy; funny, isn't it, that
we are praying and crying on account of a man who, after all, is a
real Yankee?"

"Faith, I'd turn Yankee myself for the same sweet sympathy," declared
Delaven, and received only a reproachful glance for his frivolity.

Judithe crossed the hall to the library, the indifferent smile still
on her lips, her movements graceful and unhurried; under the curious
eyes of Gertrude Loring she would show no special interest in the man
under discussion, or the guard just arrived, but for all that the
arrival of the guard determined her course. All her courage was needed
to face the inevitable; the inevitable had arrived, and she was not a
coward.

She looked at the wedding ring on her finger; it