She was in an agony of suspense and uncertainty about her lover. Gaston’s letters had failed to reach her for a month by reason of the war which had demoralised the mail service. Her own letters had failed to reach Gaston for a similar reason. The General hastened to New York to meet his wife and daughter and persuade Sallie to remain in the North until December. He was hopeful now that her long absence and Gaston’s absorption in politics, his bitter opposition to him personally, and the cloud under which he rested in prison, would be the final forces that would give him the victory in the long conflict he had waged for the mastery of his daughter’s heart. Before informing Sallie of the stirring events at Independence and the part Gaston had taken in them, or allowing her to learn of his imprisonment, the General sought to find the exact state of her mind. “I trust, Sallie,” he began, “you are recovering from your infatuation for this man. You know how dearly I love you. I have never taken a step in life since I looked into your baby face that wasn’t for you and your happiness.” She only looked at him wistfully and her eyes seemed to be dreaming, “I want you to have some pride. Gaston has attempted to kick me out of the councils of the party, and become the dictator of the state. His course is one of violence and radicalism. I regard him as a dangerous man, and I want you to have nothing to do with him.” She was gravely silent. “Do you believe he has been faithfully dreaming of you in your absence?” asked the General. “Yes, I do!” “Then let me disabuse your mind. It is not the way of strong men. He is absolutely absorbed in a desperate political struggle in which his personal ambition’s are first. I have seen him paying the most devoted attentions to the daughter of our rival down east, whose influence he wants, and it is rumoured among his friends that he has proposed to her.” “Who told you that?” she asked impetuously. “I had it first from Allan, but I’ve heard it since from others.” “I do not believe a word of it,” she declared. “That’s because you’re a woman and hold such silly ideals. I tell you, he wants you only because he knows you are rich, and he wishes to brow-beat me. Such a man will try to whip you before you have been his wife five years. I know that kind of man. Why can’t you trust my judgment?” “I had rather trust my heart’s intuitions, Papa, I can not be deceived in such a question.” “Well, you are being deceived. He is anything but a languishing lover. At present he is a political tiger at bay. Unless you hold him to you by some pledge he has given, he will forget you, and marry another in two years. I am a man and I know men. I thought I was desperately in love twice before I met your mother. I got over both attacks without a scratch, fell in love with her, married and have lived happily ever since. You have overestimated your own importance to him and your influence over him.”