d here."

Harry was confirmed in his belief that the thread of an old romance
still formed a firm tie between them.

"But you will come back," said Madame Delaunay. "You will come back
very soon. Surely, they will not try to keep us from going our ways in
peace."

A sudden thrill of passion and feeling had appeared in her voice.

"That no one can tell, Julie," said Colonel Talbot very gravely--it
was the first time that Harry had ever heard him call her by her first
name--"but it seems to me that I should tell what I think. A Union such
as ours has been formed amid so much suffering and hardship, courage and
danger, that it is not to be broken in a day. We may come back soon
from Montgomery, Julie, but I see war, a great and terrible war, a war,
by the side of which those we have had, will dwindle to mere skirmishes.
I shut my eyes, but it makes no difference. I see it close at hand,
just the same."

Madame Delaunay sighed.

"And you, Major St. Hilaire?" she said.

"There may be a great war, Madame Delaunay," he said, "I fear that
Colonel Talbot is right, but we shall win it."

Colonel Talbot said nothing more, nor did Madame Delaunay. Presently
she went back into the house. After a long silence the colonel said:

"If I were not sure that our friend Shepard had left Charleston long
since, I should say that the figure now passing in the street is his."

A small lawn filled with shrubbery stretched before the house, but from
the piazza they could see into the street. Harry, too, caught a glimpse
of a passing figure, and like the colonel he was sure that it was
Shepard.

"It is certainly he!" he exclaimed.

"After him!" cried Colonel Talbot, instantly all action. "As sure as we
live that man is a spy, drawing maps of our fortifications, and I should
have warned the Government before."

The four sprang from the piazza and ran into the street. Harry,
although he had originally felt no desire to seize Shepard, was carried
along by the impetus. It was the first man-hunt in which he had ever
shared, and soon he caught the thrill from the others. The colonel,
no doubt, was right. Shepard was a spy and should be taken. He ran
as fast as any of them.

Shepard, if Shepard it was, heard the swift footsteps behind him,
glanced back and then ran.

"After him!" cried Major St. Hilaire, his volatile blood leaping high.
"His flight shows that he's a spy!"

But the fugitive was a man of strength and resou