As for the dispatches you entrusted to me, they are safe, and if they are never delivered you will know I have suffered the fate of poor Spencer. MARK GRAFTON. After parting from the guerrillas Mark, instead of riding towards home, turned his horse westward. In due time General Hindman learned that the dispatches he had entrusted to Mark had been faithfully delivered, but that Mark had disappeared. Mr. Chittenden looked for his return to the La Belle in vain. General Hindman made anxious inquiries, for he had use for so faithful a courier as Mark had proved to be. But the weeks passed and nothing was heard, and it was thought he must have been killed, and he was numbered with the unknown dead. Mr. Chittenden mourned him as such, but Grace maintained that he still lived, and she had good cause for her belief. She had never told her father of the love passage between Mark and herself, and how she had refused to bid him good-bye when he left. The memory of that parting was a secret, she felt, only to be held in her own heart, for she was not sure she would ever see or hear from Mark again. One day a letter was placed in Grace's hands by a messenger who hurried away before she had time to thank him, much less question him. Much to her surprise and joy the letter was from Mark. "He lives! He lives!" she cried rapturously as she pressed it to her lips. Grace had forgotten all her resentment towards Mark, forgotten that the secret that lay between them was still unsolved. She only knew that she loved him. Eagerly she read the letter, which ran: GRACE: Lest you believe me dead, I write this. It was foolish in me to tell you of my love, but I had to do it. Now that you know, I am content. I ask nothing, deserve nothing, in return. Just the thought of loving you is like thinking of heaven. When I went away I rode as it were into the jaws of death, and escaped as by a miracle. Grace, it is best that I see you no more. Think of me only as one who takes joy in loving you. Only one thing will ever call me to your side, and that is if you are ever in grave danger. To defend you I would come from the ends of the earth. I think you have read Longfellow's Hiawatha, for I have seen it in your library. Do you remember that when Minnehaha lay dying she called for Hiawatha, and, although he was miles and miles away, that cry of anguish reached him. And so great is my love for you that I believe that if you should call me in a time of danger I would hear. Remember this if trouble comes, though I hope it never will. Farewell. MARK. Grace read and re-read the strange letter. Hiawatha had just been published when she was at school in St. Louis, and it had been a great favorite of hers. What could Mark mean by intimating that some great peril might be impending? She knew not. But Mark lived; he still loved her, would always love her.