Betty Winter held John Vaughan\'s note in her hand staring at its message with increasing amazement:

"Dear Little Sweetheart:

"The President has just called General McClellan again to the chief command. His act vindicates my loyalty. Our quarrel is too absurd. Life is too short, dear, for this—it\'s only long enough for love. May I see you at once?

"John."

Could it be true? For a moment she refused to believe it. The President had expressed to her his deep conviction of McClellan\'s guilt. How could he reverse his position on so vital and tremendous a matter over night? And yet John Vaughan was incapable of the cheap trick of lying to make an engagement.

A newsboy passed yelling an extra.

"Extra—Extra! General McClellan again in the saddle! Extra!"

It was true—he had made the appointment. What was its meaning? Had they forced the President into this humiliating act? If the General were really guilty of destroying Pope and overwhelming the army in defeat, his treachery had created the crisis which forced his return to power. The return under such conditions would not be a vindication. It would be a conviction of crime.

She would see the President at once and know the truth. The question cut the centre of John Vaughan\'s character. The orderly who brought the note was waiting for an answer.

She called from the head of the stairs:

"Tell Mr. Vaughan there is no answer to-day."

"Yes, Miss."

With quick salute he passed out and Betty stood irresolute as she listened to the echo of his horse\'s hoof-beat growing fainter. It was only six o\'clock, but the days were getting shorter and it was already dark. She could walk quickly down Pennsylvania Avenue and reach the White House before dinner. He would see her at any hour.

In five minutes she was on the way her mind in a whirl of speculation on the intrigue which might lie behind that sensational announcement. She was beginning to suspect her lover\'s patriotism. A man could love the South, fight and die for it and be a patriot—he was dying for what he believed to be right—God and his country. But no man could serve two masters. Her blood boiled at the thought of a conspiracy within the lines of the union whose purpose was to betray its Chief. If John Vaughan were in it, she loved him with every beat of her heart, but she would cut her heart out sooner than sink to his level!

She became conscious at last of the brazen stares of scores of brutal-looking men who thronged the sidewalks of the Avenue.

Gambling dens had grown here like mushrooms during the past year of war\'s fevered life. The vice and crime of the whole North and West had poured into Washington, now swarming with a quarter of a million strange people.

The Capital was no longer a city of sixty thousand inhabitants, but a vast frontier post and pay station of the army. And such a pay station! Each day the expenditures of the Government were more than two millions. The air was electric with the mad lust for gain which the scent of millions excites in the nostrils of the wolves who prey on their fellow men. The streets swarmed with these hungry beasts, male and female. They pushed and crowded and jostled each other from the sidewalks. The roar of their whiskey-laden voices poured forth from every bar-room and gambling den on the Avenue.

A fat contractor who had made his pile in pasteboard soles for army shoes and sent more boys to the grave from disease than had been killed in battle, touched elbows with the hook-nosed vulture who was sporting a diamond pin bought with the profits of shoddy clothes that had proven a shroud for many a brave soldier sleeping in a premature grave.

They were laughing, drinking, smoking, swearing, gambling and all shouting for the flag—the flag that was waving over millions they hoped yet to share.

A feeling of sickening fear swept the girl\'s heart. For the first time in her life she was afraid to be alone on the brightly lighted streets of Washington at dusk. The poison of death was in the air. Every desperate passion that stirs the brute in man was written in the bloodshot eyes that sought hers. The Nation was at war. To cheat, deceive, entrap, maim, kill the enemy and lay his home in desolation was the daily business now of the millions who backed the Government. Whatever the lofty aims of either of the contending hosts, they sought to win by war and this was war. It was not to be wondered at that this spirit should begin to poison the springs of life in the minds of the weak and send them forth to prey on their fellows. It was not to be wondered at that men planned in secret to advance their own interests at the expense of their fellows, to climb the ladder of wealth and fame in this black hour no matter on whose dead bodies they had to walk.

With a pang of positive terror Betty asked herself the question whether the man she loved had been touched by this deadly pestilence? A wave of horror swept her. A drunken brute brushed by and thrust his bloated face into hers.

With a cry of rage and fear she turned and ran for two blocks, left the Avenue at the corner and hurried back to her home.

She would wait until morning and see the President before the crowd arrived.

He greeted her with a joyous shout:

"Come right in, Miss Betty!"

With long, quick stride he met her and grasped her hand, a kindly twinkle in his eye:

"And how\'s our old grizzly bear, your father, this morning?"

"He\'s still alive and growling," she laughed.

The President joined heartily:

"I\'ll bet he is," he said, "and hates me just as cordially as ever?"

Betty nodded.

"But his beautiful daughter?"

"Was never more loyal to her Chief!"

"Good. Then my administration is on a sound basis. You want no office. You ask no favors. Such clear, pure, young eyes in the morning of life don\'t make mistakes. They know."

"But I\'ve come to ask you something this morning——"

The smile faded into a look of seriousness.

"What\'s the matter?" he asked quickly.

Betty hesitated and the red blood slowly mounted to her cheeks. He led her to a seat, beside his chair, touched her hand gently and whispered:

"Tell me."

"I hope you won\'t think me presumptuous, Mr. President, if I ask you to tell me why you recalled General McClellan?"

The rugged face suddenly flashed with a smile.

"Presumptuous?" he laughed. "My dear child, if you could have heard a few things my Cabinet had to say to me in this room on that subject! The tender deference with which you put the question is the nearest thing to an endorsement I have so far received! Go as far as you like after that opening. It will be a joy to discuss it with you. Presumptuous—Oh, my soul!"

He caught his knee between his hands and rocked with laughter at the memory of his Cabinet scene.

Reassured by his manner Betty leaned closer:

"You remember the morning you gave me the pass to Alexandria?"

"To see a certain young man?"

"Yes."

"Perfectly."

"You distinctly gave me the impression that morning that you were sure General McClellan was betraying his trust in his failure to support General Pope and that your confidence in him was gone forever."

"Did I?"

"Yes."

"Then it wasn\'t far from the truth," he gravely admitted.

"And yet you recalled him to the command of the army?"

"I had to."

"Had to?"

"It was the only thing to do."

Betty spoke in a whisper:

"You mean that their conspiracy had become so dangerous there was no other way?"

He threw her a searching look, was silent a moment and slowly said:

"That\'s a pointed question, isn\'t it?"

"I\'m a member of your Cabinet, you know——"

"Yes, I know—but why do you happen to ask me such a dangerous question at this particularly trying moment? Come, my little bright eyes, out with it?"

"The certain young man and I are not very happy——"

"You\'ve quarrelled?"

"Yes."

"About what?"

"You."

"You don\'t mean it, Miss Betty?" he said incredulously.

Her eyes were dim and she nodded.

"But why about me?"

"I saw things which confirmed your suspicions. He admitted his desire that General Pope should fail and defended McClellan\'s indifference. We quarrelled. I asked him to resign from the staff of his Chief——"

"You didn\'t!" he exclaimed softly, his deep eyes shining.

"I did—and he refused."

Again the big hands both closed on hers:

"God bless you, child! So long as I hold such faith from hearts like yours, I know that I\'m right. They can say what they please about me——"

"You see," she broke in, "if he is in this conspiracy and they have forced you to this surrender, he is equally guilty of treachery——"

"And you hold him responsible for his Commander\'s ambitions?"

"Yes."

The President sprang to his feet and paced the floor a moment, stopped and gazed at her with a look of curious tenderness:

"By jinks, Miss Betty, if I had a few more like you in my Cabinet I wouldn\'t be so lonesome!"

"They did force you?" she demanded.

"Not as you mean it, my child. I\'m not going to pretend to you that I don\'t understand the seriousness of the situation. The Army of the Potomac is behind McClellan to a man. It amounts to infatuation. I sounded his officers. I sounded his men. To-day they are against me and with him. If the issue could be sprung—if the leaders dared to risk their necks on such a revolution, they might win. They don\'t know this as clearly as I do. Because they are not so well informed they are afraid to move. I have chosen to beat them at their own game——"

He paused and laughed:

"I hate to shatter your ideal, Miss Betty, but I\'m afraid there\'s something of the fox in my make-up after all. Will it shock you to learn this?"

"I shall be greatly relieved to know it," she responded firmly.

"Think, then, for a moment. I suspend McClellan for his failure and replace him with a man I believe to be his superior. The army sullenly resent this change. They do not agree with me. They believe McClellan the greatest General in sight. It\'s a marvellous thing this power over men which he possesses. It can be used to create a Nation or destroy one. It\'s a dangerous force. I must handle it with the utmost care. So long as their idol is a martyr the army is unfit for good service. The moment I restore the old commander, in whom both officers and men have unbounded faith, I show them that I am beyond the influence of the political forces which demand his destruction—don\'t I?"

"Yes."

"And the moment I dare to brave popular disapproval and restore their commander don\'t you see that I win the confidence of the army in my fairness and my disinterested patriotism?"

"Of course."

"See then what must happen. Now mind you, I would never have restored McClellan to command if I did not know that at this moment he can do the work of putting this disorganized and defeated army into fighting shape better than any other. McClellan thus returned to power must fight. He must win or lose. If he wins I am vindicated and his success is mine. If he loses, he loses his power over the imagination of his men and at last I am master of the situation. I shall back him with every dollar and every man the Nation can send into his next campaign. No matter whether he wins or loses, I must win because the supremacy of the civil power will be restored."

"I see," Betty breathed softly.

She rose with a new look of reverence for a great mind.

"And the civil power was not supreme when you restored McClellan to his command?"

"Miss Betty, you\'d make a good lawyer!" he laughed.

"Was it?" she persisted.

"No."

"Thank you," she said, rising and extending her hand. "I learned exactly what I wished to know."

"And you\'ll stop quarreling?"

"If he\'s reasonable——"

He lifted his long finger in solemn warning.

"Remember now! This administration is honestly and sincerely backing General McClellan for all it\'s worth. It has always done this. We are going............