and
in it shone a single star--the evening star. That, of course, was a long
way off, yet from Louisville to Washington seemed a shorter and smoother
road than from the laurel thickets to Louisville. Youth was his, and a
resolution forged and tempered. Ambition was his, and the incentive of a
beacon whose light he renewed whenever he looked into the violet eyes
that were not far from his own.

The race would not, of course, be easy. There would be the heart-testing
smother of effort before the prize was won, but the future lay open, and
he coveted no victory of unwrung withers and unwearied lungs.

Thank God, the one thing without which he must fail was surely his: the
loyalty of the woman he loved.

Anne had been unusually quiet and grave this evening, but he had arrived
on a late train and had as yet had no opportunity for talk with her
alone. That would come later.

When he had driven home with her, he followed her into the old parlour,
with its ripe portraits from the brush of Jouett, and the cheery blaze
of its open fire. With her opera cloak thrown across his arm, he watched
her go over and stand on the hearth, while the firelight played on the
ivory whiteness and the satin softness of her neck and shoulders, and
made a nimbus about her bright hair.

"You're not wearing your string of pearls tonight," he smiled; and she
smiled, too, but not happily.

"No," she said. "I thought I wouldn't."

She did not add that she had not worn them because they were the gift of
Colonel Wallifarro and seemed to her an emblem of bondage.

All that she would tell him in a few minutes, but first she had an
awkward question to ask which had hung over her all evening as the
threat of bedtime punishment hangs over a child. Now she meant to
dispose of that quickly and categorically and have it done with. She
felt shamed, as his frank eyes met hers, to broach an inquiry that
seemed so nearly an insult to his allegiance. But she stood pledged and
she had planned the matter in just one fashion. There would be the
question and the negative reply, then the ghost would be laid.

That there could be any other answer than "No," however modified or
justified by circumstance, had not entered into her premises of thought
as conceivable. The general who, no matter how flawless his
plan-in-chief, has arranged no alternative strategy, is a commander
doomed. Anne had admitted in advance no substitute for absolute denial.

Now she turned an