d recently displayed.
"No! I am going to Europe to reside. I am done with the Confederate
cause, though I hate the Federal as much as ever. It was _Virginia_ I
was striving for, not to change the despotism of Lincoln to another and
a worse under Jeff Davis. That is enough--once more good night and
good-bye!"

"Stop!" said John Crawford, who had stood very near during all this
conversation, but taken no part in it. "You have yet a word or two to
answer to _me_. I charged you, a few moments ago, with the abduction of
a lady left to my care and under my solemn oath to protect her, by her
last living relative. I know there is no law here in my behalf; but as a
_man_ answering to a _man_, what have you to say to this?"

"Her last living relative?" said the Virginian, as if he had heard
nothing else of the words addressed to him. "Humph! as I said before, if
you are John Crawford, my wife and myself both owe you much, and perhaps
you are entitled to be satisfied before you go. Come up-stairs with me a
moment, and you shall see what foundation there is for your words."

He led the way from the office of the hotel, through the hall and up a
broad flight of steps to the next floor, the two friends following.
Turning to the left he tapped with his knuckles on the door of one of
the private parlors. There was no answer from within. He tapped again,
and still there was no answer. He turned the knob of the door and peeped
within, then opened the door a little wider and beckoned to Leslie and
Crawford.

"Look!"

The two companions looked within. Two of the burners of the chandelier
dependent from the ceiling were lit, and a flood of softened light from
the ground-shades filled the apartment. On a sofa at the left sat the
red woman of the Rue la Reynie Ogniard, red no longer now, but with the
matchless beauty of her face displayed as it had been for a moment when
Tom Leslie saw her unmasked at the house on Prince Street. But her dark
hair lay all dishevelled; and in the eyes, that seemed to be looking
down with a fixed and almost _hungry_ expression of love that could
never gaze enough, there were traces of late weeping. At her feet, on a
low ottoman, half sat and half knelt Marion Hobart--or she who had so
lately borne that name--her blonde hair thrown back from her brow, and
her eyes looking up with an answering expression of yearning affection
that would need years to satisfy. She was in white, and around her waist
were throw