That night we had a chase such as I had never before indulged in. The aide-de-camp believed Frank Amory to be ill with fever:--delirium in fact, but to my knowledge delirium was unusual as a first symptom of an ordinary Southern fever. He might be feverish; might indeed be ill; but that alone would not be apt to cause his extraordinary excitement. Two or three officers at headquarters had remarked his strange manner and absent-minded replies, said the aide, while he had been there early in the evening, but at that time his face was pale rather than flushed. At the stables on Magazine Street we again questioned the sergeant. "Did the lieutenant appear to be under any strong excitement?" asked the aide-de-camp, and the sergeant eyed him askance a moment as though he misunderstood the drift of the question, seeing which I interposed,-- "The captain fears that Mr. Amory is seized with just such a fever as that which prostrated Major Vinton." Whereat the sergeant looked relieved, and answered,-- "I couldn't say, sir. He never spoke more than to order his horse and then go off at a gallop. But two or three times lately at Sandbrook he has done that,--taken his horse and gone off riding at the dead of night. He may be ill, sir, but I couldn't say." This news in some way strengthened my view of the case. The fact that he had frequently or occasionally gone off in a similar manner went to prove that the ailment was not a new bodily trouble. Knowing what I knew and felt bound to keep to myself, it was not hard to determine that mental perturbations, aggravated perhaps by recent fatigues and excitements, were at the bottom of Amory's strange conduct. None the less, however, I was eager to find and bring him back. He ought not to be away from his command at such a time. Directing the sergeant to say to Mr. Amory that we were in search of him and begged him to wait for us on his return, the aide-de-camp and I hurried down the street; sought a cab-stand; and, jumping into one of the light cabriolets that were then a feature of the New Orleans streets, we drove rapidly down to Vinton's quarters. I thought Amory might have galloped thither. A dim light was burning in the sick-room, as we could see from the front. The door was closed and locked, but I rang, and presently a servant came sleepily through the hall and stared at me in mild stupefaction. "No. Mr. Amory hadn't been there." I brushed past the darky and went noiselessly up the stairs and tapped at Vinton's door. The nurse came and peered at me through the inch-wide crack: not a whit more would he open the door lest the night air should be wafted in. "We fear that Lieutenant Amory is taken ill," I said in a low tone. "He may come here to see his captain. Try and get him to lie down in Colonel Summers's room until we get back, if he should come." The nurse nodded; said that Vinton was sleeping quietly, and directed me to Harrod's door. I knocked there, and it was opened in a moment.