ham Lincoln knew the human heart.

The officer still stood facing the President, the girl staring at his
profile. The door closed behind him. "Major Brice," said Mr. Lincoln,
"when you asked me to pardon Colonel Colfax, I believe that you told me
he was inside his own skirmish lines when he was captured."

"Yes, sir, he was."

Suddenly Stephen turned, as if impelled by the President's gaze, and so
his eyes met Virginia's. He forgot time and place,--for the while even
this man whom he revered above all men. He saw her hand tighten on the
arm of her chair. He took a step toward her, and stopped. Mr. Lincoln
was speaking again.

"He put in a plea, a lawyer's plea, wholly unworthy of him, Miss
Virginia. He asked me to let your cousin off on a technicality. What do
you think of that?"

"Oh!" said Virginia. Just the exclamation escaped her--nothing more. The
crimson that had betrayed her deepened on her cheeks. Slowly the eyes
she had yielded to Stephen came back again and rested on the President.
And now her wonder was that an ugly man could be so beautiful.

"I wish it understood, Mr. Lawyer," the President continued, "that I
am not letting off Colonel Colfax on a technicality. I am sparing his
life," he said slowly, "because the time for which we have been waiting
and longing for four years is now at hand--the time to be merciful. Let
us all thank God for it."

Virginia had risen now. She crossed the room, her head lifted, her heart
lifted, to where this man of sorrows stood smiling down at her.

"Mr. Lincoln," she faltered, "I did not know you when I came here. I
should have known you, for I had heard him--I had heard Major Brice
praise you. Oh," she cried, "how I wish that every man and woman and
child in the South might come here and see you as I have seen you
to-day. I think--I think that some of their bitterness might be taken
away."

Abraham Lincoln laid his hands upon the girl. And Stephen, watching,
knew that he was looking upon a benediction.

"Virginia," said Mr. Lincoln, "I have not suffered by the South, I have
suffered with the South. Your sorrow has been my sorrow, and your pain
has been my pain. What you have lost, I have lost. And what you have
gained," he added sublimely, "I have gained."

He led her gently to the window. The clouds were flying before the wind,
and a patch of blue sky shone above the Potomac. With his long arm he
pointed across the river to the southeast, and as if by a miracl