Betty Winter received a telegram from John Vaughan announcing his arrival at Alexandria with McClellan on the last day of August. Her heart gave a bound of joy. She could see him to-morrow. It had been five years instead of five months since she had stood on that little pier and watched him float away into the mists of the river! All life before the revelation which love had brought was now a shadowy memory. Only love was real. His letters had been her life. They hadn\'t come as often as she had wished. She demanded his whole heart. There could be no compromise. It must be all, all or nothing.

She tried to sleep and couldn\'t. Her brain was on fire.

"I must sleep and look my best!" she laughed softly, buried her face in the pillow and laughed again for joy. How could she sleep with her lover standing there alive and strong with his arms clasping her to his heart!

She rose at daylight and threw open her window. The air was crisp with the breath of fall. She watched the sun rise in solemn glory. A division of cavalry dashed by, the horses\' hoofs ringing sharply on the cobble stones, sabres clashing. Behind them came another and another, and in a distant street she heard the rumble of big guns, the crack of their drivers\' whips and the sharp cries of the men urging the horses to a run.

Something unusual was on foot. The sun was barely up and the whole city seemed quivering with excitement.

She dressed hurriedly, snatched a bite of toast and drank a cup of coffee. In twenty minutes she entered the White House to get her pass to the front. She wouldn\'t go to the War Department. Stanton was rude and might refuse. The hour was absurd, but she knew that the President rose at daylight and that he would see her at any hour.

She found him seated at his desk alone pretending to eat an egg and drink his coffee from the tray that had been placed before him. His dishevelled hair, haggard look and the pallor of his sorrowful face showed only too plainly that he had not slept.

"You have bad news, Mr. President?" Betty gasped.

He rose, took her hand and led her to a seat.

"Not yet, dear, but I\'m expecting it."

"We lost the battle yesterday?" she eagerly asked.

"Apparently not. You may read that. I trust you implicitly."

He handed her the dispatch he had received from General Pope after the first day\'s fight at Manassas. Betty read it quickly:

"We fought a terrific battle here yesterday with the combined forces of the enemy, which lasted with continuous fury from daylight until dark, by which time the enemy was driven from the field which we now occupy. The enemy is still in our front, but badly used up. We lost not less than eight thousand men killed and wounded, but from the appearance of the field the enemy lost two to one. The news has just reached me from the front that the enemy is retreating toward the mountains."

Betty looked up surprised:

"Isn\'t that good news?"

"Nothing to brag about. It\'s the last sentence that worries me——"

"But that seems the best!"

"It might be but for the fact that Jackson is leading that retreat toward the mountains! I\'ve an idea that he will turn up to-day on Pope\'s rear with Lee\'s whole army on his heels. Jackson is in the habit of appearing where he\'s least expected——"

He paused, paced the floor a moment in silence and threw his long arms suddenly upward in a hopeless gesture:

"If God would only give me such a man to lead our armies!"

"Is General McClellan at Alexandria to-day?" Betty suddenly asked.

"I\'m wondering myself. He should be on that field with every soldier under his command."

"I\'ve come to ask you for a pass to Alexandria——"

"Then my worst fears are confirmed!" he broke in excitedly. "Your sweetheart\'s on McClellan\'s staff—his men will never reach the field in time!"

He dropped into a chair, hurriedly wrote the pass and handed it to Betty.

"God bless you, child. See me when you get back and tell me all you learn of McClellan and his men to-day. The very worst is suspected——"

"You mean?"

"That this delay and deliberate trifling with the most urgent and positive orders is little short of treason. Unless his men reach Pope to-day and fight, the Capital may be threatened to-morrow."

"Surely!" Betty protested.

"It\'s just as I tell you, child, but I\'ll hope for the best. Be eyes and ears for me to-day and you may help me."

The agony of his face and the deep note of tragedy in his voice had taken the joy out of her heart. She threw the feeling off with an effort.

"What has it all to do with my love!" she cried with a toss of her pretty head as she sprang into the saddle for the gallop to Alexandria.

The cool, bracing air of this first day of September, 1862, was like wine. The dew was yet heavy on the tall grass by the roadside and a song was singing in her heart that made all other music dumb.

John had dismounted and was standing beside the road, the horse\'s bridle hanging on his arm in the very position he had stood and looked into her soul that day.

She leaped to the ground without waiting for his help and sprang into his arms.

"I like you better with that bronzed look—you\'re handsomer than ever," she sighed at last.

His answer was another kiss, to which he added:

"No amount of sunburn could make you any prettier, dear—you\'ve been perfect from the first."

"Your General is here?" Betty asked.

"Yes."

"And you can give me the whole day?"

"Every hour—the General is my friend."

The moment was too sweet to allow any shadow to cloud it. The girl yielded to its spell without reserve. They mounted and rode side by side over the hills. And the man poured into her ears the unspoken things he had felt and longed to say in the lonely nights of camp and field. The girl confessed the pain and the longing of her waiting.

They mounted the crest of a hill and the breeze from the southwest brought the sullen boom of a cannon.

Instinctively they drew rein.

"The battle has begun again," John said casually.

"It stirs your blood, doesn\'t it?" she whispered.

A frown darkened his brow:

"Not to-day."

The girl looked with quick surprise.

"You don\'t mean it?"

"Certainly. Why get excited when you know the end before it begins."

"You know it?"

"Yes."

"Victory?"

He laughed cynically:

"Victory for a pompous braggart who could write that address to an army reflecting on the men who fought Lee and Jackson before Richmond with such desperate courage?"

"You are sure of defeat then?"

"Absolutely."

Betty looked at him with a flush of angry excitement:

"General McClellan is counting on Pope\'s defeat to-day?"

"Yes."

"Then it\'s true that he is not really trying to help him?"

"Why should he wish to sacrifice his brave men under the leadership of a fool?"

"He is, in fact, defying the orders of the President, isn\'t he?"

"You might say that if you strain a point," John admitted.

Again the long roar of guns boomed on the Western horizon, louder, clearer. The dull echoes became continuous now, and the quickening breeze brought the faint din from the vast field of death whose blazing smoke covered lines stretched over seven miles.

"Boom-boom-boom, boom!—boom! boom!"

Again they drew rein and listened.

John\'s brow wrinkled and his right ear was thrown slightly forward.

"Those are our big guns," he said with a smile. "The Confederate artillery can\'t compare with ours—their infantry is a terror—stark, dead game fighters——"

"Boom—Boom!—--Boom! Boom! Boom!"

"How do you know those are our guns?" Betty asked with a shiver.

"The rebels have none so large. They\'ll have some to-night."

Again an angry flush mounted her cheeks:

"You wish them to be captured?"

"It will be a wholesome lesson."

Betty leaned closer and grasped his hand with trembling eagerness.

"O John—John, dear, this is madness! General McClellan has been accused of treason already—this surely is the basest betrayal of his country——"

The man shook his head stubbornly:

"No—it\'s the highest patriotism. My Commander is brave enough to dare the authorities at Washington for the good of his country. The sooner this farce under Pope ends the better—no man of second rate ability can win against the great Generals of the South."

The girl\'s keen brown eyes looked steadily into his and her lips trembled.

"I call it treachery—the betrayal of his country for his selfish ambitions! I\'m surprised that you sympathize with him."

John frowned, was silent and then turned to her with a smile:

"Let\'s not talk about it, dear. The day\'s too beautiful. We\'re alone together. This is not your battle—nor mine—it\'s Pope\'s—let him fight it out. I love............