XIX. DOROTHY’S DECISION 277 XX. A MAN, A MAID, AND A HORSE 283 XXI. EVELYN LIFTS A CORNER OF THE CURTAIN 294 XXII. ALONE IN THE PORCH 302 XXIII. A LESSON FROM DOROTHY 318 XXIV. EVELYN’S BOOK 327 XXV. MORE OF EVELYN’S BOOK 345 XXVI. EVELYN’S BOOK, CONTINUED 370 XXVII. KILGARIFF’S PERPLEXITY 386 XXVIII. EVELYN’S BOOK, CONCLUDED 390 XXIX. EVELYN’S VIGIL 418 XXX. BEFORE A HICKORY FIRE 424 XXXI. THE LAST FLIGHT OF EVELYN 432 XXXII. THE END OF IT ALL 434 ILLUSTRATIONS “I already know what is in the papers” _Frontispiece_ PAGE “Who are you?” 89 “I may stroke his fur as much as I please” 166 Taking the papers from Campbell’s hand, passed out of the house without a word of farewell 208 EVELYN BYRD [Illustration] I A STRICKEN CORSAGE A BATTERY of six twelve-pounder Napoleon guns lay in a little skirt of woodland on the south bank of the Rapidan. It was raining, not violently, but with a soaking persistence that might well have made the artillery-men tired of life and ready to welcome whatever end that day’s skirmishing might bring to the weariness of living. But these men were veteran soldiers, inured to hardship as well as to danger. A saturating rain meant next to nothing to them. A day’s discomfort, more or less, counted not at all in the monotonously uncomfortable routine of their lives. They had been sent into the woodland an hour or two ago, and had done a little desultory firing now and then, merely by way of disturbing the movements of small bodies of the enemy who were being shifted about on the other side of the river. Just now the guns were silent, no enemy being in sight, and Captain Marshall Pollard being disposed to save his ammunition against the time, now obviously near at hand, when the new commander of the Federal forces, General Grant, should push the Army of the Potomac across the river to make a final trial of strength and sagacity with that small but wonderfully fighting Army of Northern Virginia directed by the master mind of Robert E. Lee.