“O my child! my child!”

“Mamma!”

“Dearest, dearest Olympia,” Merry splutters, wildly embracing both.

“Oh, how delightful to be here, to see you, mamma as peaceful and serene as in the old days!  I thought I should never get home.  I left Richmond three weeks ago.  I was held at Fredericksburg for ten days.  Then I had to turn back when we got to Manassas, through some red tape lacking there.  But here I am.  Here I am at home—­ugh!—­I shall never quit it again—­never.”

“But, my child.  Tell us—­Jack!”

“Jack?  Haven’t you heard from him?  He escaped three weeks ago.  It was he who got the men out of the prison.  Dick was with him.  Surely you have heard of that?” and Olympia sank into the nearest chair, all the gayety gone from her face, her eyes questioning the two wretched women.  Neither could for the moment control her agitation; neither was capable of thinking.  All that was in their minds was this dire specter of a month’s silence.  Alive, Jack or Dick would have found means to relieve their anxiety.

“Surely you heard that a party had escaped from Libby and made their way to Fort Monroe?” Olympia cried, desperately.

“Fort Monroe?” Mrs. Sprague echoed mechanically.  “Yes, ah, yes.  Merry, where’s the paper?”

Olympia devoured the meager scrap and then dropped the journal on her knees.  Her mind was in a whirl.  In Richmond the escape had been announced, then the news that the party had been surrounded in the swamp, then day by day details of the taking of straggling negroes and one or two soldiers, but no name that even resembled Jack’s.  The Atterburys, after the first painful sensation, had given their approval of Jack’s going, and used all means in their power to get such facts as would comfort Olympia.  They assured her that Jack had reached the Union lines, and then she had set out northward, expecting to find him at home or in communication with his family.  No word from Dick?  No word from Jack?  They were dead, and she—­she had urged them to the mad adventure!  She had given Jack no peace, had fired Dick to the fatal enterprise.  She dared not look in the tearless eyes of her mother.  She dared not face the ghastly questioning in Merry’s meek eye.  Brodie had gone down to see the escaped men.  Perhaps he would discover something.  This was the small comfort left the three when, near midnight, they ended the woful conference.

The next day Olympia was visited by a representative of the Crossbow, the chief journal of Warchester, and urged to write a narrative of her adventures in the rebel capital.  Until her friends made her see how much effect it would have in clearing Jack’s reputation she shrank from the publicity, but with that end in view—­Jack’s honor—­she wrote, and wrote with strength and clearness, the moving incidents of her brother’s capture, captivity, and escape—­or his bold effort to escape.  This she told so simply, so directly, so vividly,