“Often,” said Mr. Brinsmade, “often I have been unable to sleep, and have seen the light in Stephen’s room until the small hours of the morning.”

“Oh, Mr. Brinsmade,” cried Virginia.  “Can’t you tell me something bad about him?  Just once.”

The good gentleman started, and looked searchingly at the girl by his side, flushed and confused.  Perhaps he thought—­but how can we tell what he thought?  How can we guess that our teachers laugh at our pranks after they have caned us for them?  We do not remember that our parents have once been young themselves, and that some word or look of our own brings a part of their past vividly before them.  Mr. Brinsmade was silent, but he looked out of the carriage window, away from Virginia.  And presently, as they splashed through the mud near the Arsenal, they met a knot of gentlemen in state uniforms on their way to the city.  Nicodemus stopped at his master’s signal.  Here was George Catherwood, and his father was with him.

“They have released us on parole,” said George.  “Yes, we had a fearful night of it.  They could not have kept us—­they had no quarters.”

How changed he was from the gay trooper of yesterday!  His bright uniform was creased and soiled and muddy, his face unshaven, and dark rings of weariness under his eyes.

“Do you know if Clarence Colfax has gone home?” Mr. Brinsmade inquired.

“Clarence is an idiot,” cried George, ill-naturedly.  Mr. Brinsmade, of all the prisoners here, he refused to take the parole, or the oath of allegiance.  He swears he will remain a prisoner until he is exchanged.”

“The young man is Quixotic,” declared the elder Catherwood, who was not himself in the best of humors.

“Sir,” said Mr. Brinsmade, with as much severity as he was ever known to use, “sir, I honor that young man for this more than I can tell you.  Nicodemus, you may drive on.”  And he slammed the door.

Perhaps George had caught sight of a face in the depths of the carriage, for he turned purple, and stood staring on the pavement after his choleric parent had gone on.

It was done.  Of all the thousand and more young men who had upheld the honor of their state that week, there was but the one who chose to remain in durance vile within the Arsenal wall—­Captain Clarence Colfax, late of the Dragoons.

Mr. Brinsmade was rapidly admitted to the Arsenal, and treated with the respect which his long service to the city deserved.  He and Virginia were shown into the bare military room of the commanding officer, and thither presently came Captain Lyon himself.  Virginia tingled with antagonism when she saw this man who had made the city tremble, who had set an iron heel on the flaming brand of her Cause.  He, too, showed the marks of his Herculean labors, but only on his clothes and person.  His long red hair was unbrushed, his boots covered with black mud, and his coat unbuttoned.  His face was ruddy, and his eye as clear as though he had arisen from twelve hours’ sleep.  He bowed to Virginia (not too politely, to be sure).  Her own nod of are recognition did not seem to trouble him.