ly, lifted his head and caught the smile on the lips of
the Secretary of War standing in the shadows of the doorway of the
Diplomatic gallery.

The stately figure of John C. Breckinridge, the Vice-President, suddenly
mounted the dais and his piercing eyes swept the assembly. He rapped for
order and the silence which followed was as the hush of death.

"The curtain rises on our drama, Mad'moiselle," the smooth even voice
said.

"Sh!" the girl whispered.

CHAPTER II

THE PARTING

The breathless galleries leaned forward to catch the slightest sound
from the arena below.

One by one the Senators from the seceding Southern States rose and
renounced their allegiance to the United States in obedience to the
voice of their people.

With each solemn exit the women of the galleries grew hysterical, waved
their perfumed handkerchiefs and shouted their approval with cries of
sympathy and admiration.

David Yulee, Stephen K. Mallory and Benjamin Fitzpatrick had each closed
his portfolio and with slow measured tread marched down the crowded
aisle and out of the Chamber never again to enter its doors.

All eyes were focused now on the brilliant young Senator from Alabama,
Clement C. Clay, Jr. It was understood that he had prepared an eloquent
defense of his action and would voice the passionate feeling of the
masses of the Southern people in this his last utterance in the
crumbling temple of the old Republic.

He rose in his place, lifted his strong head with its leonine locks and
broad, high forehead, paused a moment and began his speech in the clear
steady tones of the trained orator, master of himself, his theme and his
audience. The Northern Senators met his gaze with scorn and he answered
with a look of bold defiance.

The formal announcement of the secession of his State he made in brief
sharp sentences and plunged at once into the reasons for their solemn
act.

"Forty-two years ago, Alabama was admitted into the Union," he declared
in ringing tones. "She entered it as she goes out, with the Republic
convulsed by the hostility of the North to her domestic institutions.
Not a decade has passed, not a year has elapsed since her birth as a
State that has not been marked by the steady and insolent growth of the
mob violence of the North which has demanded the confiscation of her
property and the destruction of the foundations of her civilization.

"Who are the leaders of these mobs who seek thus to overthr