cannot be aware of until close at hand. When he has come some yards farther Abbot is in no doubt as to his identity, and steps forward to greet him. "Doctor Warren, I am so glad to have found you, for I must hurry after the army to-morrow, and only reached Washington this evening. Tell me, how is Miss Bessie?" The doctor is startled, as a matter of course, but there is something in the young soldier's directness that pleases him. Perhaps he is pleased, too, to know that his own views are correct, and that the moment Paul Abbot reached Washington he has come in search of them. He takes the proffered hand and holds it--or, rather, finds his firmly held. "Bessie has been ill, but is better, major; and how did you leave them all at home? I have just been taking a walk of two or three blocks before turning in. Fresh air is something I cannot do without. How did you find us?" "By hunting up your hackman. I was grievously disappointed at not finding you at Hastings, where I went first, or here at Willard's. Did you not get my letters and telegrams?" "They were forwarded, and came last night." "Then you moved this morning to avoid me, doctor. Does it mean that I am to be punished for another man's crime? Guthrie's picture had no such unfriendly welcome for me, and I do not believe you want to hide her from me. Tell me what it is that makes Bessie avoid me of her own accord. Has she heard the truth about the old letters?" Doctor Warren is silent a moment, looking up into the young soldier's face. Then he more firmly grasps his hand. "I do _not want_ to avoid you, Abbot, but it is only natural that now she should find it hard to meet you. Three days after you left she caught me fairly, and finding that the letter in my hand was yours, she noted instantly the difference between the writing and that of the letters that came to her at home. Something else had roused her suspicions, and I had to tell her that there had been trickery, and she would have no half-way explanation. She probed and questioned with a wit as keen as any lawyer's. She made me confess that that was why I told her Paul Abbot was dead when I got back to her at Frederick. He was dead to us. And so, little by little, it all came out, and she was simply stunned for a while. It made her too ill to admit of our travelling, and she made me tell her when you were expected back, and bring her here. In a day or two we will start homeward."