The hour has come and how different is the outcome from any I had imagined. I was sitting last night in my own lonely little room, which opens directly on the street, struggling as best I might against the distraction of my thoughts which would lead me from the book I was studying, when a knock on the panels of my door aroused me, and almost before I could look up, that same door swung open and a dark form entered and stood before me. For a moment I was too dazed to see who it was, and rising ceremoniously, I made my bow of welcome, starting a little as I met the Colonel's dark eyes looking at me from the folds of the huge mantle in which he had wrapped himself. "Your worship?" I began, and stumbling awkwardly, offered him a chair which he refused with a gesture of his smooth white hand. "Thank you, no," said he, "I do not sit down in your house till I know if it is you who have stolen the heart of my bride away from me and if it is you with whom she is prepared to flee." "Ah," was my involuntary exclamation, "then it has come. You know her folly, and will forgive it because she is such a child." "Her folly? Are you not then the man?" he cried; but in a subdued tone which showed what a restraint he was putting upon himself even in the moment of such accumulated emotions. "No," said I; "if your bride meditates flight, it is not with me she means to go. I am her friend, and the man who would take her from you is not. I can say no more, Colonel Schuyler." He eyed me for a moment with a deep and searching gaze which showed me that his intellect was not asleep though his heart was on fire. "I believe you," said he; and threw aside his cloak and sat down. "And now," he asked, "who is the man?" Taken by surprise, I stammered and uttered some faint disclaimer; but seeing by his steady look and firm-set jaw that he meant to know, and detecting as I also thought in his general manner and subdued tones the promise of an unexpected forbearance, I added impulsively: "Let the wayward girl tell you herself; perhaps in the telling she will grow ashamed of her caprice." "I have asked her," was the stern reply, "and she is dumb." Then in softer tones he added: "How can I do anything for her if she will not confide in me. She has treated me most ungratefully, but I mean to be kind to her. Only I must first know if she has chosen worthily." "Who is there of worth in town?" I asked, softened and fascinated by his manner. "There is no man equal to yourself." "You say so," he cried, and waved his hand impatiently. Then with a deep and thrilling intensity which I feel yet, he repeated, "His name, his name? Tell me his name."