accompanied him as he went down the rickety stairs.

"Colonel," asked Prescott, as they reached the street, "who, in reality,
is Mr. Sefton?"

"That is more than any of us can tell," replied the Colonel; "nominally
he is at the head of a department in the Treasury, but he has acquired a
great influence in the Cabinet--he is so deft at the despatch of
business--and he is at the White House as much as he is anywhere. He is
not a man whom we can ignore."

Prescott was of that opinion, too, and when he got into his bed, not
long before the break of day, he was still thinking of the bland
Secretary.

CHAPTER V

AN ELUSIVE FACE

Walking abroad at noontime next day, Prescott saw Helen Harley coming
toward Capitol Square, stepping lightly through the snow, a type of
youthful freshness and vigour. The red hood was again over her head, and
a long dark cloak, the hem of it almost touching the snow fallen the
night before, enclosed her figure.

"Good-morning, Mr. Soldier," she said cheerily; "I hope that your
dissipations at the Mosaic Club have not retarded the recovery of your
injured shoulder."

Prescott smiled.

"I think not," he replied. "In fact, I've almost forgotten that I have a
shoulder."

"Now, I can guess where you are going," she said.

"Try and see."

"You are on your way to the Capitol to hear Mr. Redfield reply to that
attack of Mr. Winthrop's, and I'm going there, too."

So they walked together up the hill, pausing a moment by the great
Washington monument and its surrounding groups of statuary where Mr.
Davis had taken the oath of office two years before, and Mr. Sefton, who
saw them from an upper window of that building, smiled sourly.

The doors of the Capitol were wide open, as they always stood during the
sessions of Congress, and Robert and Helen passed into the rotunda,
pausing a moment by the Houdon Washington, and then went up the steps to
the second floor, where they entered the Senate Chamber, now used by the
Confederate House of Representatives. The tones of a loud and tireless
voice reached them; Mr. Redfield was already on his feet.

The honourable member from the Gulf Coast had risen on a question of
personal privilege. Then he required the clerk of the House to read the
offending editorial from Winthrop's newspaper, during which he stood
haughtily erect, his feet rather wide apart, his arms folded indignantly
across his breast, and a look of righteous wrath on his face. W