l have to come, and in very
truth you will have to walk in the straight and narrow path."

"I am not afraid," she said, with a proud lifting of her head. "I will
take the risks, and if you, Mr. Sefton, for some reason unknown to me,
force me to match my wits with yours, I shall do the best I can."

The haughty uplift of her neck and the flash of her eye showed that she
thought her "best" would be no mean effort, but this attitude appealed
to the Secretary more than a humble submission ever would have done.
Here was one with whom it would be a pleasure to make a test of skill
and force. Certainly steel would be striking sparks from steel.

"I am not making any threats, Miss Catherwood," he said. "That would be
unworthy, I merely wish you to understand the situation. I am a frank
man, I trust, and, like most other men, I seek my own advancement; it
would further no interest of mine for me to denounce you at present, and
I trust that you will not at any time make it otherwise."

"That is, I am to serve you if you call upon me."

"Let us not put it so bluntly."

"I shall not do anything that I do not wish to do," she said, with the
old proud uplift of her head. "And listen! there is something which may
soon shatter all your plans, Mr. Sefton."

She pointed backward, where the purplish clouds hung over the
Wilderness, whence came the low, sullen mutter, almost as faint as the
distant beat of waves on a coast.

The Secretary smiled deprecatingly.

"After all, you are like other women, Miss Catherwood. You suppose, of
course, that I stake my whole fortune upon a single issue, but it is
not so. I wish to live on after the war, whatever its result may be, and
the tide of fortune in that forest may shift and change, but mine may
not shift and change with it."

"You are at least frank."

"The South may lose, but if she loses the world will not end on that
account. I shall still wish to play my part. Ah, here comes Captain
Prescott."

Prescott liked little this long talk between Lucia and the Secretary and
the deep interest each seemed to show in what the other said. He bore it
with patience for a time, but it seemed to him, though the thought was
not so framed in his mind, that he had a certain proprietary interest in
her because he had saved her at great risk.

The Secretary received him with a pleasant smile, made some slight
remark about duty elsewhere and dropped easily away. Prescott waited
until he was out of