Just then the rattletrap pulled up at the sidewalk, the wheels of the near side in four inches of mud, and the Captain leaped out and spread the umbrella.  They were in front of a rather imposing house of brick, flanked on one side by a house just like it, and on the other by a series of dreary vacant lots where the rain had collected in pools.  They climbed the steps and rang the bell.  In due time the door was opened by a smiling yellow butler in black.

“Does General Carvel live here?”

“Yas, miss, But he ain’t to home now.  Done gone to New York.”

“Oh,” faltered Virginia.  “Didn’t he get my telegram day before yesterday?  I sent it to the War Department.”

“He’s done gone since Saturday, miss.”  And then, evidently impressed by the young lady’s looks, he added hospitably, “Kin I do anything fo’ you, miss?”

“I’m his niece, Miss Virginia Carvel, and this is Captain Brent.”

The yellow butler’s face lighted up.

“Come right in, Miss Jinny, Done heerd de General speak of you often —­yas’m.  De General’ll be to home dis a’ternoon, suah.  ’Twill do him good ter see you, Miss Jinny.  He’s been mighty lonesome.  Walk right in, Cap’n, and make yo’selves at home.  Lizbeth—­Lizbeth!”

A yellow maid came running down the stairs.  “Heah’s Miss Jinny.”

“Lan’ of goodness!” cried Lizbeth.  “I knows Miss Jinny.  Done seed her at Calve’t House.  How is you, Miss Jinny?”

“Very well, Lizbeth,” said Virginia, listlessly sitting down on the hall sofa.  “Can you give us some breakfast?”

“Yas’m,” said Lizbeth, “jes’ reckon we kin.”  She ushered them into a walnut dining room, big and high and sombre, with plush-bottomed chairs placed about—­walnut also; for that was the fashion in those days.  But the Captain had no sooner seated himself than he shot up again and started out.

“Where are you going, Lige?”

“To pay off the carriage driver,” he said.

“Let him wait,” said Virginia.  “I’m going to the White House in a little while.”

“What—­what for?” he gasped.

“To see your Black Republican President,” she replied, with alarming calmness.

“Now, Jinny,” he cried, in excited appeal, “don’t go doin’ any such fool trick as that.  Your Uncle Dan’l will be here this afternoon.  He knows the President.  And then the thing’ll be fixed all right, and no mistake.”

Her reply was in the same tone—­almost a monotone—­which she had used for three days.  It made the Captain very uneasy, for he knew when she spoke in that way that her will was in it.

“And to lose that time,” she answered, “may be to have him shot.”

“But you can’t get to the President without credentials,” he objected.

“What,” she flashed, “hasn’t any one a right to see the President?  You mean to say that he will not see a woman in trouble?  Then all these pretty stories I hear of him are false.  They are made up by the Yankees.”