leaned close. They were not talking any more. But a few minutes were left and he must go-perhaps to die. Words had ceased to mean anything.

Her heart rose in fierce rebellion against the wall of silence her pride had reared. A group of magnificently equipped young officers passed on horseback. Perhaps of General McClellan's staff! She looked in vain among them for his familiar face. If he passed she would disgrace herself-she felt it with increasing certainty. Why had she come here, anyway? As well tell the truth-in the vague hope of a meeting.

The quick beat of a horse's hoof echoed along the road. She looked and recognized John Vaughan! He was coming straight toward her. Instinctively and resistlessly she moved to meet him.

She waved her hand in an awkward little gesture as if she had tried to stop after beginning the movement. His eye had been quick to see and with a graceful pull on his horse's bridle he had touched the pommel of the saddle, leaped to his feet, cap in hand, and stood trembling before her.

"It's too good to be true!" he exclaimed breathlessly.

She extended her bare hand and he held it without protest. It was trembling violently.

"You were going to leave without an effort to see me?" she asked in low tones.

"I was just debating that problem when I saw you standing by the road," he answered soberly. "I don't think I could have done it. It's several hours before we embark. I was just figuring on how I could reach you in time."

"Really?" she murmured.

"Honestly."

"Well, if you had gone without a word, I couldn't have blamed you"-she paused and bit her lips"I was very foolish that day."

"It was my fault," he broke in, "all my fault. I was a brute. I realized it too late. I'd have eaten my pride and gone back to see you the day I reached Washington if I had thought it any use. I have never seen such a look in the eyes of a woman as you gave me that day, Miss Betty. If there had been any love in your heart I knew that I had killed it—"

She looked into his eyes with a tender smile: "I thought you had"

He pressed her hand tenderly.

"But now?"

"I know that love can't be killed by a kiss."

She stopped suddenly, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him. He held her close for a moment, murmuring:

"My sweetheart-my darling!"

Through four swift beautiful hours they sat on a log, held each other's hands, and told over and over the old sweet story. Another long, tender embrace and he was gone. She stood on the little wharf, among hundreds of weeping sisters and mothers and sweethearts, and watched his boat drift down the river. He waved his handkerchief to her until the big unfinished dome of the Capitol began to fade on the distant horizon.

CHAPTER XIII

THE SPIRES OF RICHMOND

To meet three great armies converging on Richmond along the James under McClellan, from the North under McDowell, and the West by the Shenandoah Valley, the South had barely fifty-eight thousand men commanded by Joseph E. Johnston and eighteen thousand under Stonewall Jackson.

The Southern people were still suffering from the delusion of Bull Run and had not had time to adjust themselves to the amazing defeats suffered at Fort Henry and Fort Donaldson, to say nothing of the stunning victory of the Monitor in Hampton Roads, which had opened the James to the gates of the Confederate Capital.

Jackson was ordered into the Shenandoah Valley to execute the apparently impossible task of holding in check the armies of Fremont, Milroy, Banks and Shields, and at the same time prevent the force of forty thousand men under McDowell from reaching McClellan. The combined forces of the Federal armies opposed thus to Jackson were eight times greater than his command. And yet, by a series of rapid and terrifying movements which gained for his little army the title of "foot cavalry," he succeeded in defeating, in quick succession, each army in detail. McDowell was despatched in haste to join Fre

mont and crush Jackson. And while his army was rushing into the Shenandoah Valley, Jackson withdrew and quietly joined the army before Richmond which moved to meet McClellan.

Little Mac, with his hundred and twenty thousand men, had moved up the Peninsula with deliberate but resistless force, Johnston's army retiring before him without serious battle until the Army of the Potomac lay within sight of the spires of Richmond. Faint, but clear, the breezes brought the far-off sound of her church bells on Sunday morning.

The two great armies at last faced each other for the first clash of giants, McClellan with one hundred and ten thousand men in line, Johnston with seventy thousand Southerners.

John Vaughan rode along the lines of the Federal host on the afternoon of May 30th, to inspect and report to his Commander. Through the opening in the trees the Confederate army could be plainly seen on the other side of the clearing. The Federal scouts had already reported the certainty of an attack.

The Confederates that night lay down on their arms with orders to attack at daylight. Dark clouds had swirled their storm banks over the sky before sunset and the heavens were opened. The rain fell in blinding torrents, until the sluggish little stream of the Chickahominy had become a rushing, widening, treacherous river which threatened to sweep away the last bridge McClellan had constructed.

The Confederate Commander was elated. The army of his enemy was divided by a swollen river. The storm increased until it reached the violence of a hurricane. Through the entire night the lightning flashed and

the thunder pealed without ceasing. At times the heavens were livid with blinding, dazzling light. Tents were a mockery. The earth was transformed into a

vast morass.

The storm had its compensations for the Northern army though divided. Its frightful severity had so demoralized the Confederates that it was nearly noon before General A. P. Hill moved to the attack.

The entrenched army was ready. The Union pickets lay in the edge of the woods and every soldier in the pits had been under cover for hours awaiting the onset.

With a shout the men in grey leaped from their shelter, pouring their volleys from close charging columns. The rifle balls whistled through the woods, clipping boughs, barking the trees, and hurling the Federal pickets back on their support. In front of the abatis had been planted a battery of four guns. The grey men had fixed their eyes on them. General Naglee saw their purpose and threw his four thousand men into the open field to meet them. Straight into each other's faces their muskets flamed, paused, and flamed again. The Northern men fixed their bayonets, charged, and drove the grey line slowly back into the woods. Here they met a storm of hissing lead that mowed their ranks. They broke quickly and rushed for the cover of their rifle pits.

The grey lines charged, and for three hours the earth trembled beneath the shock of their continued assaults.

Suddenly on the left flank of the Federal army a galling fire was poured from a grey brigade. The movement had been quietly and skillfully executed. At the same moment General Rodes' brigade rushed on