The count watched the reader curiously as she examined the letter. Her face was white, but her hand did not tremble as she handed back the letter. "It is well," she said. "I am satisfied. Good morning, gentlemen." In Paris, Cambia's mind was soon made up. She privately arranged for an indefinite absence, and one day she disappeared. It was the sensation of the hour; the newspapers got hold of it, and all Paris wondered. There had always been a mystery in the life of Cambia. No man had ever invaded it beyond the day when she put herself in the hands of a manager and laid the foundation for her world-wide success upon the lyric stage. And then Paris forgot; and only the circle of her friends watched and waited. Meanwhile the swift steamer had carried Mrs. Gaspard Levigne across the Atlantic and she had begun that journey into the south-land, once the dream of her youth--the going back to father and to friends! The swift train carried her by towns and villages gorgeous with new paint and through cities black with the smoke of factories. The negroes about the stations were not of the old life, and the rushing, curt and slangy young men who came and went upon the train belonged to a new age. The farms, with faded and dingy houses, poor fences, and uncared-for fields and hedges, swept past like some bad dream. All was different; not thirty years but a century had rolled its changes over the land since her girlhood. And then came the alighting. Here was the city, different and yet the same. But where was the great family carriage, with folding steps and noble bays, the driver in livery, the footman to hold the door? Where were father and friends? No human being came to greet her. She went to the hotel, locked herself in her room, and then Cambia gave way for the first time in a generation to tears. But she was eminently a practical woman. She had not come to America to weep. The emotion soon passed. At her request a file of recent papers was laid before her, and she went through them carefully. She found that which she had not looked for. CHAPTER LII. DEATH OF COL. MONTJOY. It was the morning succeeding the trial, one of those southern days that the late fall steals from summer and tempts the birds to sing in the woodlands. Gen. Evan had borne Virdow and Edward in triumph to The Cedars and, after breakfast, Edward had ridden over to The Hall, leaving the two old men together. Virdow interested his host with accurate descriptions of the great battles between the Germans and the French; and Evan in turn gave him vivid accounts of the mighty Virginia struggles between Federals and Confederates. When they finally came to Edward as a topic the German was eloquent. He placed him beside himself in learning and ahead of all amateurs as artist and musician. "Mr. Morgan agreed with me in his estimate of Edward," Virdow said. "They were warm friends. Edward reciprocated the affection bestowed upon him; in Europe they traveled much--"