ar well on that day, as became them and her.

At any other time she would have followed up that thrifty market at
Bean's Station. She would have huckstered around the neighborhood, and
made a little income while it lasted; but now she had no heart for it.
Her lover's leave was out, yet his regimental associates knew nothing
about him.

A week after the day set for her marriage her brother came again with
the flag of truce. He too was vexed--not so much at Cophetua's absence
as at not meeting the widow, whom he had been sent to escort to the
Confederate lines. But he treated his sister's jealous suspicions
with a dash of scorn: "There was nothing of that kind, but if Cophetua
would fool with a loaded gun, he must expect to be hurt. If ever there
was a hair-trigger, it was Mrs. G----."

"Who is she?" asked his sister eagerly. "Tell me: you say there is
something strange, dangerous about her, and I can see it. Who is she?"

"Humph!" said her brother. "She is a lady, and that is enough. If she
is dangerous, keep out of her way."

This only deepened the mystery. But she had no time to think. Her
brother left in the morning. In the afternoon the colonel of her
lover's regiment came to see her with a very grave face. The young
man had been arrested for dealing with the enemy, harboring spies and
furnishing information of the disposition and number of the Federal
forces. "If we could get at the true story of his connection with that
woman," said the colonel, "I am satisfied he has only been indiscreet,
not treacherous. He is one of my best, most trusted officers, and his
arrest is a blot on the regiment. If he will tell anybody, he will
tell you. Can you go to Louisville at once?"

Yes, at once. The traveling-dress, made up for so different an
occasion, was donned, and under escort she went, by a hundred miles of
horseback ride, to the nearest railway station. There was no tarrying
by the way: the colonel's influence provided relays. On the evening of
the third day she was with her lover.

It was as the colonel had supposed: the woman had got her lover in her
toils, and he had been imprudent. He had every reason for believing
that her story of her husband's remains was false. She was a dealer in
contraband goods: this much he knew. Other officers, of higher rank,
knew as much, and corresponded with her. If they chose to wink at it,
was he, a subordinate, to interfere? She had trusted him, depended on
him, and he had a f