Strahan drew a long breath, then said:  “He has won her fairly.  I had suspected his regard for her; but I would rather have had his opportunity and his wound than be a major-general.”

“I appreciate the honor you pay my daughter, but there are some matters beyond human control,” was the kind response.

“I understand all that,” said the young man, sadly; “but I can still be her loyal friend, and that, probably, is all that I ever could have been.”

“I, at least, can assure you of our very highest esteem and respect, Mr. Strahan;” and after a few more words the gentlemen parted.

The hours dragged on, and at last Dr. Henderson insisted that Marian should go down to lunch.  She first met Strahan in the sitting-room, and sobbed on his shoulder:  “O Arthur!  I fear he will die, and if he does I shall wish to die, too.  You must stand by us both like a loyal brother.”

“Marian, I will,” he faltered; and he kept his word.

He made her take food, and at last inspired her with something of his own sanguine spirit.

“Oh, what a comfort it is to have you here!” she said, as she was returning to her post.  “You make despair impossible.”

Again the hours dragged slowly on, the stillness of the house broken only by Merwyn’s delirious words.  Then, for a time, there was disquiet in bitter truth.

All through the dreadful night just described, an ocean steamer had been ploughing its way towards the port of New York.  A pilot had boarded her off Sandy Hook, and strange and startling had been his tidings to the homeward-bound Americans.  The Battle of Gettysburg, the capture of Vicksburg, and, above all, the riots had been the burden of his narrations.

Among the passengers were Mrs. Merwyn and her daughters.  Dwelling on the condition of her son’s mind, as revealed by his letter, she had concluded that she must not delay her departure from England an hour longer than was unavoidable.  “It may be,” she thought, “that only my presence can restrain him in his madness; for worse than madness it is to risk all his future prospects in the South just when our arms are crowned with victories which will soon fulfil our hopes.  His infatuation with that horrid Miss Vosburgh is the secret of it all.”

Therefore, her heart overflowing with pride and anger, which increased with every day of the voyage, she had taken an earlier steamer, and was determined to hold her son to his oath if he had a spark of sanity left.

Having become almost a monomaniac in her dream of a Southern empire, she heard in scornful incredulity the rumor of defeat and disaster brought to her by her daughters.  All the pride and passion of her strong nature was in arms against the bare thought.  But at quarantine papers were received on board, their parallel columns lurid with accounts of the riot and aglow with details of Northern victories.  It appeared to her that she had sailed from well-ordered