Again Mr. Lincoln smiled.  He strode to the bell-cord, and spoke a few words to the usher who answered his ring.

The usher went out.  Then the door opened, and a young officer, spare, erect, came quickly into the room, and bowed respectfully to the President.  But Mr. Lincoln’s eyes were not on him.  They were on the girl.  He saw her head lifted, timidly.  He saw her lips part and the color come flooding into her face.  But she did not rise.

The President sighed But the light in her eyes was reflected in his own.  It has been truly said that Abraham Lincoln knew the human heart.

The officer still stood facing the President, the girl staring at his profile.  The door closed behind him.  “Major Brice,” said Mr. Lincoln, when you asked me to pardon Colonel Colfax, I believe that you told me he was inside his own skirmish lines when he was captured.”

“Yes, sir, he was.”

Suddenly Stephen turned, as if impelled by the President’s gaze, and so his eyes met Virginia’s.  He forgot time and place,—­for the while even this man whom he revered above all men.  He saw her hand tighten on the arm of her chair.  He took a step toward her, and stopped.  Mr. Lincoln was speaking again.

“He put in a plea, a lawyer’s plea, wholly unworthy of him, Miss Virginia.  He asked me to let your cousin off on a technicality.  What do you think of that?”

“Oh!” said Virginia.  Just the exclamation escaped her—­nothing more.  The crimson that had betrayed her deepened on her cheeks.  Slowly the eyes she had yielded to Stephen came back again and rested on the President.  And now her wonder was that an ugly man could be so beautiful.

“I wish it understood, Mr. Lawyer,” the President continued, “that I am not letting off Colonel Colfax on a technicality.  I am sparing his life,” he said slowly, “because the time for which we have been waiting and longing for four years is now at hand—­the time to be merciful.  Let us all thank God for it.”

Virginia had risen now.  She crossed the room, her head lifted, her heart lifted, to where this man of sorrows stood smiling down at her.

“Mr. Lincoln,” she faltered, “I did not know you when I came here.  I should have known you, for I had heard him—­I had heard Major Brice praise you.  Oh,” she cried, “how I wish that every man and woman and child in the South might come here and see you as I have seen you to-day.  I think—­I think that some of their bitterness might be taken away.”

Abraham Lincoln laid his hands upon the girl.  And Stephen, watching, knew that he was looking upon a benediction.

“Virginia,” said Mr. Lincoln, “I have not suffered by the South, I have suffered with the South Your sorrow has been my sorrow, and your pain has been my pain.  What you have lost, I have lost.  And what you have gained,” he added sublimely, “I have gained.”

He led her gently to the window.  The clouds were flying before the wind, and a patch of blue sky shone above the Potomac.  With his long arm he pointed across the river to the southeast, and as if by a miracle a shaft of sunlight fell on the white houses of Alexandria.