She sat long behind the curtains in her father's little library, the thoughts whirling in her brain as she watched the growing life of another day. What would it bring forth? Once she stole softly back to the entry, self-indulgent and ashamed, to rehearse again the bitter and the sweet of that scene of the Sunday before. She summoned up the image of the young man who had stood on these steps in front of the frightened servants. She seemed to feel again the calm power and earnestness of his face, to hear again the clear-cut tones of his voice as he advised her. Then she drew back, frightened, into the sombre library, conscience-stricken that she should have yielded to this temptation then, when Clarence--She dared not follow the thought, but she saw the light skiff at the mercy of the angry river and the dark night. This had haunted her. If he were spared, she prayed for strength to consecrate herself to him A book lay on the table, and Virginia took refuge in it. And her eyes glancing over the pages, rested on this verse:-- "Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums, That beat to battle where he stands; Thy face across his fancy comes, And gives the battle to his hands." The paper brought no news, nor mentioned the ruse to which Captain Lyon had resorted to elude the writ by transporting his prisoner to Illinois. Newspapers were not as alert then as now. Colonel Carvel was off early to the Arsenal in search of tidings. He would not hear of Virginia's going with him. Captain Lige, with a surer instinct, went to the river. What a morning of suspense! Twice Virginia was summoned to her aunt, and twice she made excuse. It was the Captain who returned first, and she met him at the door. "Oh, what have you heard?" she cried. "He is alive," said the Captain, tremulously, "alive and well, and escaped South." She took a step toward him, and swayed. The Captain caught her. For a brief instant he held her in his arms and then he led her to the great armchair that was the Colonel's. "Lige," she said,--are you sure that this is not--a kindness?" "No, Jinny," he answered quickly, "but things were mighty close. I was afraid last night. The river was roarin'. They struck out straight across, but they drifted and drifted like log-wood. And then she began to fill, and all five of 'em to bail. Then---then she went down. The five soldiers came up on that bit of an island below the Arsenal. They hunted all night, but they didn't find Clarence. And they got taken off to the Arsenal this morning." "And how do you know?" she faltered. "I knew that much this morning," he continued, "and so did your pa. But the Andrew Jackson is just in from Memphis, and the Captain tells me that he spoke the Memphis packet off Cape Girardeau, and that Clarence was aboard. She picked him up by a miracle, after he had just missed a round trip through her wheel-house." End of Project Gutenberg's The Crisis, Volume 5, by Winston Churchill