r sunrise by no less a person than Mr.
Sefton himself, fresh, immaculate and with no trace of discomposure on
his face. He was on horseback, and told them he had just come across the
fields from another division of the army not more than three miles away.
He gave the news in a quiet tone, without any special emphasis upon the
more important passages. The South had been compelled to give ground;
Grant had lost more than fifty thousand men, but he was coming through
the Wilderness and would not be denied. He was still fighting as if he
had just begun, and reinforcements were constantly pouring forward to
take the places of the fallen in his ranks.

Prompted by a motive which even his own analytical mind could not
define, the Secretary sought Lucia Catherwood. He admired her height,
her strength and resolved beauty--knew that she was of a type as
admirable as it was rare, and wondered once or twice why he did not love
her instead of Helen Harley. Here was a woman with a mind akin to his
own--bold, keen and penetrating. And that face and figure! He wished he
could see her in a drawing-room, dressed as she should be, and with the
lights burning softly overhead. Then she would be indeed a princess, if
there were any such beings, in the true meaning of the word, on this
earth. She would be a fit wife for a great man--the greater half of
himself.

But he did not love her; he loved Helen Harley--the Secretary confessed
it to himself with a smothered half-sigh. At times he was pleased with
this sole and recently discovered weak spot in his nature, because it
brought to him some fresh and pleasing emotions, not at all akin to any
that he had ever felt before; but again it troubled him, as a flaw in
his armour. His love for Helen Harley might interfere with his
progress--in fact, was doing so already, but he said to himself he could
not help it. Now he was moved to talk to Lucia Catherwood. Dismounting
from his horse, he took a place by her side.

She was walking near the rear of the column and there were others not
many feet away, but she was alone in the truest sense, having a feeling
of personal detachment and aloofness. These people were kind to her, and
yet there was a slight difference in their manner toward her and toward
one another--a difference almost imperceptible and perhaps not intended,
but sufficient to show her that she was not of them. Just now it gave
her such a sense of loneliness and exclusion that she almost