campus to the
small but remarkably pretty white cottage with green vines clinging
to trellis work all around it. Here they entered. The rooms were
furnished with rare and antique furniture and were so tastefully
arranged as to astonish and please even Bernard, who had been
accustomed from childhood to choice, luxuriant magnificence.

They entered a side room, overlooking a beautiful lawn which could
boast of lovely flowers and rose bushes scattered here and there. They
sat down, facing each other. Bernard was a bundle of expectancy. He
had passed through enough to make him so.

Belton said: "Bernard, I am now about to put the keeping of the
property, the liberty, and the very lives of over seven million five
hundred thousand people into your hands."

Bernard opened his eyes wide in astonishment and waited for Belton to
further explain himself.

"Realize," said Belton, "that I am carefully weighing each remark
I make and am fully conscious of how much my statement involves."
Bernard bowed his head in solemn thought. Viola's recent death, the
blood-curdling experiences of the day, and now Belton's impressive
words all united to make that a sober moment with him; as sober as
any that he had ever had in his life. He looked Belton in the face and
said: "May revengeful lightning transfix me with her fiercest bolts;
may hell's most fiery pillars roll in fury around me; may I be
despised of man and forgotten of my God, if I ever knowingly, in
the slightest way, do aught to betray this solemn, this most sacred
trust."

Belton gazed fondly on the handsome features of his noble friend and
sighed to think that only the coloring of his skin prevented him
from being enrolled upon the scroll containing the names of the very
noblest sons of earth. Arousing himself as from a reverie he drew near
to Bernard and said: "I must begin. Another government, complete in
every detail, exercising the sovereign right of life and death over
its subjects, has been organized and maintained within the United
States for many years. This government has a population of seven
million two hundred and fifty thousand."

"Do you mean all that you say, Belton?" asked Bernard eagerly.

"I shall in a short time submit to you positive proofs of my
assertion. You shall find that I have not overstated anything."

"But, Belton, how in the world can such a thing be when I, who am
thoroughly conversant with every movement of any consequence, have not
even d