No doubt, whatever one thought was the dwelling-place of divinity, or whatever he called the one thing worth while, if it presently appeared not to be there, there was always a marvellous emptiness in its place, a world apparently convicted of barrenness, since its growths were convicted of illusion--a point in experience once called "the Everlasting No," a period of fretful discontent. It did not seem probable that the lost law and divinity were at sanctuary in that discontent. Meanwhile in the valley of the Shenandoah the oak foliage kindled and smouldered in dull red, as if its approaching death were a matter of pride and stately celebration, and Gard led a singular dual existence, one side of which seemed to be a staring at a topless and bottomless distaste, and the other to be an argument that good whiskey was cheaply and secretly distilled in certain portions of western Virginia, to the discomfiture of the United States--that, if the Confederate army would purchase and absorb enough of it, the capture of Washington would become immediately probable. The behavior, the schemes, inventions and discourses of this secondary personage of his creating had an objective interest. It seemed to Gard to be in its way a noteworthy character, judged as a piece of creative fiction. It was modelled on Mavering, but gathered details from day to day and perfected its symmetry. It appeared to have volition, a speech and individual oddities all its own, which he was hardly aware of having invented. Some days after his return he came by the Opequan and the place where he had fallen headlong in the road with the man of the bandage. He turned his horse into the bushes. The body lay still in its place. The "secondary personage" commented aloud in character, and to Gard's surprise. "It appears you didn' furnish that cyarfully boiled description." He broke boughs and threw them over the body, mounted again and rode on. "That's the injustice of circumstance." A few hundred yards beyond he met a detail of soldiers, halted them, and said to the officer: "Do you see that white birch?" "Yes." "Very good. Theah's a co'pse of a day or two no'th of it which I discove'd accident'ly and threw over it a tributo'y leaf. It looked to me," with an air of reminiscence and respect, "like a gentleman that might have known good whiskey in his time." "I'll look at him. Reckon I know who you are. Haven't captured Washington yet?" The men around grinned. "The difficulty, seh, with the management of this campaign, is its impe'viousness to ideas. Good-mo'ning, seh." It was the first week in November when he rode across the Long Bridge into Washington and fastened his horse to a tree in front of the War Department. He sent in his name, and the summons came promptly. He entered an inner office, and was alone with a thick-set man with a grim mouth, and beard falling half-way down his chest, who rapidly turned the leaves of a book of entry.