“I am glad to see that you have recovered, Colonel Colfax,” he said.

“I should indeed be without gratitude if I did not thank Captain Brice for my life,” answered Clarence.  Virginia flushed.  She had detected the undue accent on her cousin’s last words, and she glanced apprehensively at Stephen.  His forceful reply surprised them both.

“Miss Carvel has already thanked me sufficiently, sir,” he said.  “I am happy to have been able to have done you a good turn, and at the same time to have served her so well.  It was she who saved your life.  It is to her your thanks are chiefly due.  I believe that I am not going too far, Colonel Colfax,” he added, “when I congratulate you both.”

Before her cousin could recover, Virginia slid down from the desk and had come between them.  How her eyes shone and her lip trembled as she gazed at him, Stephen has never forgotten.  What a woman she was as she took her cousin’s arm and made him a curtsey.

“What you have done may seem a light thing to you, Captain Brice,” she said.  “That is apt to be the way with those who have big hearts.  You have put upon Colonel Colfax, and upon me, a life’s obligation.”

When she began to speak, Clarence raised his head.  As he glanced, incredulous, from her to Stephen, his look gradually softened, and when she had finished, his manner had become again frank, boyish, impetuous —­nay, penitent.  He seized Stephen’s hand.

“Forgive me, Brice,” he cried.  “Forgive me.  I should have known better.  I—­I did you an injustice, and you, Virginia.  I was a fool—­a scoundrel.”  Stephen shook his head.

“No, you were neither,” he said.  Then upon his face came the smile of one who has the strength to renounce, all that is dearest to him—­that smile of the unselfish, sweetest of all.  It brought tears to Virginia.  She was to see it once again, upon the features of one who bore a cross, —­Abraham Lincoln.  Clarence looked, and then he turned away toward the door to the stairway, as one who walks blindly, in a sorrow.

His hand was on the knob when Virginia seemed to awake.  She flew after him: 

“Wait!” she whispered.

Then she raised her eyes, slowly, to Stephen, who was standing motionless beside his chair.

“Captain Brice!”

“Yes,” he answered.

“My father is in the Judge’s room,” she said.

“Your father!” he exclaimed.  “I thought—­”

“That he was an officer in the Confederate Army.  So he is.”  Her head went up as she spoke.

Stephen stared at her, troubled.  Suddenly her manner, changed.  She took a step toward him, appealingly.

“Oh, he is not a spy,” she cried.  “He has given Mr Brinsmade his word that he came here for no other purpose than to see me.  Then he heard that the Judge was dying—­”

“He has given his word to Mr. Brinsmade?

“Yes.”

“Then,” said Stephen, “what Mr. Brinsmade sanctions is not for me to question.”