“Philip, I cannot renounce my friends, my dear country, the home of my childhood.”

“Then look you what will be my fate:  I will join the armies of the North, and fling away my life in battle against my native soil.  Ruin and death cannot come too soon when you forsake me.”

Miranda remained silent, but, through the gloom of the recess, he could see the glistening of a tear upon her cheek.

The hall-bell rang, and the servant brought in a card for Miss Ayleff.  Following it, Arthur Wayne was ushered into the room.

She rose to receive him, somewhat surprised at a visit from a stranger.

“I have brought these letters for you from my good friend Beverly Weems,” said Arthur.  “At his request, I have ventured to call in person, most happy, if you will forgive the presumption, in the opportunity.”

She gave her hand, and welcomed him gracefully and warmly, and, having introduced Mr. Searle, excused herself while she glanced at the contents of Beverly’s letter.  While thus employed, Arthur marked her changing color; and then, lifting his eyes lest his scrutiny might be rude, observed Philip’s dark eye fixed upon her with a suspicious and searching expression.  Then Philip looked up, and their glances met—­the calm blue eye and the flashing black—­but for an instant, but long enough to confirm the instinctive feeling that there was no sympathy between their hearts.

A half-hour’s general conversation ensued, but Philip appeared restless and uneasy, and rose to take his leave.  She followed him to the parlor door.

“Come to me to-morrow,” she said, as she gave her hand, “and we will talk again.”

A smile of triumph rested upon his pale lips for a second; but he pressed her hand, and, murmuring an affectionate farewell, withdrew.

Arthur remained a few moments, but observing that Miranda was pensive and absent, he bade her good evening, accepting her urgent invitation to call at an early period.

CHAPTER XI.

“Well, Arthur,” said Harold Hare, entering the room of the former at his hotel, on the following evening, “I have come to bid you good bye.  I start for home to-morrow morning,” he added, in reply to Arthur’s questioning glance.  “I am to have a company of Providence boys in my old friend Colonel R——­’s regiment.  And after a little brisk recruiting, ho! for Washington and the wars!”

“You have determined for the war, then?”

“Of course.  And you?”

“I shall go to my Vermont farm, and live quietly among my books and pastures.”

“A dull life, Arthur, when every wind that blows will bring to your ears the swell of martial music and the din of arms.”

“If I were in love with the pomp of war, which, thank heaven, I am not, Harold, I would rather dwell in a hermit’s cave, than follow the fife and drum over the bodies of my Southern countrymen.”