absolved from mine. The fact
that you could find time to write day after day to Miss Warren,
and neglect me for weeks, would in itself be justification for
demanding my release from an engagement you have held so lightly.
But that you should have sought and won another's love even while
your honor was pledged to me, is _more_ than enough. I do not ask
release. I break the bond--once and for all.

"You will have no place to receive your letters at the front. They,
with your ring, and certain gifts with which you have honored me
from time to time, will be found in a packet which is this day
forwarded to your mother.

"GENEVIEVE WINTHROP."

Abbot is seated with his head buried in his hands. That name again! the
girl who fainted at sight of him! the old man who was prostrate at his
denial on the Monocacy! the picture of himself in _her_ desk! and now,
this bitter, insulting letter from the woman who was to have been his
wife! Rix's words at the field hospital!--what in Heaven's name can it
all mean? What network of crime and mystery is this that is thrown
around him?

There is a sudden knock at the door--a negro waiter with a telegram:

"POINT OF ROCKS, MD., _Oct._ --, 1862.

"Major PAUL R. ABBOT,
Willard's Hotel, Washington:

"Hollins still missing; believed to have followed you to
Washington. Use every effort to secure arrest.

"PUTNAM."

VII.

There is an air of unusual excitement about the War Department this
bright October day. It is only a month since the whole army seemed
tramping through the streets on its way to the field of the Antietam;
only three weeks since the news was received that Lee was beaten back
across the Potomac, and every one expected that McClellan would be hot
on his trail, eager to pursue and punish before the daring Southerners
could receive accessions. But though two corps managed to reoccupy
Harper's Ferry and there go into camp, the bulk of the army has remained
where Lee left it when he slipped from its grasp, and McClellan's cry is
for reinforcements. Three weeks of precious time slip by, and then--back
come those daredevils of Stuart's, riding with laugh and taunt and jeer
all around the Union forces; and