welcomed
the smile of the Secretary when he spoke to her. As ready to recognize
the power in him as he was to note her own strong and keen mind, she
waited guardedly to hear what he had to say.

"Miss Catherwood," he said, "I was glad to assist you in your plan of
returning to Richmond, but I have wondered why you should wish to
return. If I may use a simile, Richmond is the heart of the storm, and
having escaped from such a place, it seems strange that you should go
back to it."

"There are many other women in Richmond," she replied, "and as they will
not be in any greater danger than I, should I be less brave than they?"

"But they have no other choice."

"Perhaps I have none either. Moreover, a time is coming when it is not
physical courage alone that will be needed. Look back, Mr. Sefton."

She pointed to the Wilderness behind them, where they saw the crimson
glow of flames against the blue sky, and long, trailing clouds of black
smoke. The low mutter of guns, a continuous sound since sunrise, still
came to their ears.

"The flames and the smoke," she said, "are nearer to Richmond than they
were yesterday, just as they were nearer yesterday than they were the
day before."

"It is yet a long road to Richmond."

"But it is being shortened. I shall be there at the end. The nearest and
dearest of all my relatives is in Richmond and I wish to be with her.
There are other reasons, too, but the end of which I spoke is surely
coming and you know it as well as I. Perhaps you have long known it. As
for myself, I have never doubted, despite great defeats."

"It is not given to men to have the faith of women."

"Perhaps not; but in this case it does not require faith: reason alone
is sufficient. What chance did the South ever have? The North, after all
these years, is just beginning to be aroused. Until the present you have
been fighting only her vanguard. Sometimes it seems to me that men argue
only from passion and sentiment, not from reason. If reason alone had
been applied this war would never have been begun."

"Nor any other. It is a true saying that neither men nor women are ever
guided wholly for any long period by reason. That is where
philosophers,--idealogists, Napoleon called them--make their mistake,
and it is why the science of government is so uncertain--in fact, it is
not a question of science at all, but of tact."

The Secretary was silent for awhile, but he still walked beside Miss
Catherwood, l