Betty's heart gave a bound of joy, and in half an hour she was standing on the shining shore of the river before the old mill. Its great wheel was slowly turning, the water falling in broken crystals sparkling in the moonlight. Through the windows of the brick walls peered the black-mouthed guns trained across the water. She looked about timidly for a moment while the man in grey who had rowed her over made fast his boat. He tipped his old slouch hat: "This way, Miss." He led her down close, to the big wheel, crossed the stream of water which poured from its moss-covered buckets, and there, beneath an apple tree in bloom, stood a straight, soldierly figure in the full blue uniform of a Federal Captain, exactly as she had seen Ned Vaughan that night in the Old Capitol Prison. The soldier saluted and Ned said: "Wait, Sergeant, at the water's edge with your boat." He was gone and Ned grasped both Betty's hands and kissed them tenderly: "My glorious little heroine! I just had to tell you again that the life you saved is all, all yours. You are glad to see me--aren't you?" "I can't tell you how glad, Boy! How brown and well you look!" "Yes, the hard life somehow agrees with me. It's a queer thing, this army business. It makes some men strong and clean, and others into beasts." "And why did you wear that dangerous uniform, sir?" she asked, with a smile. "In honor of a beautiful Yankee girl, my guest. I've not worn it since that night, Betty, until now----" His voice dropped to a whisper: "It has been a holy thing to me, this blue uniform that cost me the life which you gave back at the risk of your own----" "I was in no danger. I had powerful friends." "They might not have been powerful enough--but it's sacred for another reason--as precious to me as the seamless robe for which the Roman soldiers cast lots on Calvary--I wore it in the one glorious moment in which I held you in my arms, dearest." "O Ned, Boy, you shouldn't be so foolish!" "I'm not. I'm sensible. I've done no more scout work since. I said that my life was yours and I had no right to place it again in such mad danger----" "And so you face death on the field!" "Yes, come sit here, dearest, I've made a seat for you of the broken timbers from the bridge. We can see the moonlit river and the lazy turn of the old wheel while we talk." He led her to the seat in the edge of the moonlight and Betty drew a deep breath of joy as she drank in the beauty of the entrancing scene. The shadows of night had hidden the scars of war. Only the tall stone piers standing, lone sentinels in the river, marked its ravages where the bridge had fallen. The moon had flung her sparkling silver veil over the blood-stained world. "You know," Ned went on eagerly, "those big pillars won't stand there naked long. We'll put the timbers back on them soon and run our trains through to Washington----"