"Now," Leslie concluded, "you know as much of Dexter Ralston as I do. And I think you will quite agree with me that he is one of the last men I could have expected to meet in the streets of New York at the present moment, when martial law is so prevalent and Fort Lafayette so convenient."
"Humph!" said Harding, getting up from the bed where he had lounged so long, examining his watch to see that it was nearly midnight, and lighting a fresh cigar to go home. "Humph! well, what do you make of him? A leading traitor, deep in the counsels of Jeff. Davis, Yancey and Company?"
"Humph!" said Leslie in return, "what else can he be?"
"Or a Virginia Unionist, faithful among the faithless, and too brave to be afraid anywhere?" suggested Harding.
"Ah!" answered Leslie, in that tone which suggests a new idea, or the corroboration of an old one.
"Or a trusted agent of the Federal Government, giving up old prejudices for the sake of patriotism, and better acquainted with Seward than Slidell--eh?"
"By George!" exclaimed Leslie, "there is something in that idea! He must be one of the three--but which?"
"That we may know better one of these days," said Harding, as Leslie accompanied him out to the street. "Meanwhile he is certainly a most singular person, and I shall not be sorry to know more of him, whether as friend or foe to the nation!"
How soon and how remarkably his wish was fulfilled, to some extent, we shall see hereafter.
THE INVALID AND THE WILD MADONNA--A BRAVE HEART BEATING THE BARS OF ITS PRISON--ODD COMFORT AND DOUBTFUL CONSOLATION--THE DAWN OF A TERRIBLE SUSPICION.
In the neat and tastefully-furnished back parlor of a house on West 3--th Street, one afternoon, at very nearly the same period mentioned in a previous chapter--the latter part of June, 1862--lay on the sofa a young man, of perhaps twenty-five, with a countenance that would have been strikingly handsome if it had not been drawn and attenuated by suffering. He had a well-chiselled face, clear blue eyes, and light-brown, curling hair, closely shaven of beard or moustache; still showing, spite of sickness, the manly nature that lay within, and which always makes, when it radiates outward, a pleasanter picture for the eye of a true woman than can be supplied by even high health and the most perfect physical beauty without it. The limbs, extended upon the sofa as he lay, though a little attenuated like the face, showed that they were well-formed and athletic. And the hand, drooping over the side of the couch, though too thinly white to suggest a love-pressure, indicated, in the taper of the fingers, and the fine round of the back, without any coarse protruding knuckles, what a handsome little Napoleonic hand it must have been when the owner was in full health and the life-blood coursing freely through his veins.