Leacraft finished his task in the west. The disputes were smoothed out, the differences adjudicated, and a problem or so which had mixed up the overseer and the Mining Superintendent at the mines in an acute wrangle, disposed of. He was back to Washington on his way to Baltimore and Sally Garrett. The invitation from Ned Garrett to visit Baltimore and go with Sally and himself to Gettysburg on the twentieth of May, had been accepted, and every movement he had made, each step he had taken, since that memorable ninth of April when he first learned of the complexion of political affairs in the United States, and had heard Mr. Binn’s remarkable lecture, had been thoughtfully adjusted to getting back in time for the pleasure and the opportunity of seeing Sally. His own earnest desire to possess her for himself, to compel her wayward and tantalizing spirit to acknowledge his mastery had increased, and like most young men in similar relations to the unknown quantity of susceptibility in a popular young woman’s heart his anxiety grew with every lessening minute between the present and the moment of confession. But at any rate Leacraft felt no indecision. Come what might he had no misgivings about his own feelings, and lingered, with no trepidation, over the thought of asking Miss Garrett to marry him. Defeat was preferable to the hardship of doubt. He would be less miserable after rejection, if rejection it was, than he was now; tormented with an immeasurable uncertainty. And his English heaviness, that semi-sepulchral seriousness which by some amusing compensation in the gifts of Nature is mingled with the very substantial merits of these people, induced a rather grim sadness in his mind, and he reached the door of 72 Monument Square, Baltimore, with no actual palpitation, but with a strained sense of the importance of his own fate which made him grave. Leacraft had many personal merits. He had an excellent mind, a reasonably fearless heart, a sense of justice, itself the best gift of God to man, and a face, which if not distinguished by remarkable beauty became, under the excitement of feeling, and in the more propitious circumstances of good health, attractive, from a manly comeliness, not handsome perhaps, but certainly not commonplace. And he had physique. He was tall and strong, and his strength acknowledged obedience to an intelligence which made it formidable. The door of the quiet house before which he stood, opened and there--Leacraft almost stumbled into unconsciousness--_as if expecting him_, as if flying on the wings of--if not Love, something else uncommonly pleasant--as if impatient to cross the laggard moments which separated them--was Sally Garrett.