may be quite different and entirely unrelated things or persons. It is so easy for one to be mistaken; and even the desire, once granted, might pall in a day, so fickle is the human heart and so shifting are the tastes of men." Then, seeing his sore disappointment, she gently added, "And, Mr. Simonson, you should remember that the denier often is far unhappier than the one denied; for it is such a happiness to give when the whole heart joyfully accompanies the gift. You know what the Good Book says." Others now were clamoring for their "mail," and the young lawyer regretfully turned away. Passing to the next room, he came face to face with Vergie Culpepper. She was going home, she said, and was waiting for Calhoun Levering, her escort. She looked like some Goddess of the Night. Her eyes had all the radiancy of the stars. Her deep passionate contralto voice set all his nerves a-tingle. Her hand at parting added a touch of fire. Even after she had gone her presence seemed to remain and to fill the room. "Are there two of me?" he said to himself. "And am I in love with two women?" Is there such a thing as heart polygamy? Are there two kinds of love, the one spiritual, and the other material? And am I responsible for this inward susceptibility to both? And is it base in me to confess, ""How happy I could be with either, Were t'other dear charmer away'?" Angry with himself, disgusted, he bade his host and hostess good-night. CHAPTER XVII. SECRET SOCIETIES IN SOUTHERN ILLINOIS-A PILGRIMAGE THU HUS far hope had been entertained that the war, with all its attendant horrors, would soon be over; but with the advent of the new year it became evident that no compromise or conciliation was possible. The clans, both North and South, were gathered and "Cæsar's spirit, ranging for revenge, With Atè by his side, come hot from hell, Now a backward glance revealed the fact that from the day of Lincoln's election, elected wholly by Northern States, war had been inevitable; and that from the Lincoln-Douglas Debate and John Brown's Raid at Harper's Ferry the South had been sternly preparing to submit all her grievances to the arbitrament of the sword-the writer chances to know from Jefferson Davis' own lips that the President of the Southern Confederacy never for a moment doubted but the withdrawal from the Union of the Southern States would result in war; and Mr. Lincoln's utterances leave no doubt but he was equally convinced, long before he left Springfield, that he would be able to retain and maintain the territorial integrity and the administrative entity of the Federal Government only by a resort to arms; and that he, Lincoln, had grimly, though reluctantly, resolved not to shrink from the ordeal, however fierce it might be, and "if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, 'The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether' with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in." During the months of his presidency the "Railsplitter" had also revealed an unexpected trait of character clearly prophetic of the course he would pursue and the length to which he would go; also lifting the curtain that hid from the gaze of both North and South an unescapable bloody future-a will as inflexible as Cromwell's and a purpose, relentless as fabled Fate's, to bring back the States, and to free the slaves; and that to accomplish this he would if necessary, like another Cromwell, seize all the reins of government, rewrite the Constitution, under the plea of "military necessity" enact his own laws, and, in short, himself be the Government. By the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus he had already usurped a prerogative of Congress, defied the Federal Judiciary, and clothed the Presidential office with undreamed of prerogatives, himself exercising all the prerogatives of the Legislative, the Judicial, and the Executive. "The plain truth was that," as one of the President's most ardent defenders explained, "many things not permitted by the Constitution must be done to preserve the Constitution." But the nation was none the less shocked, not so much by the isolated act itself as by the revelation of what it must now expect, namely, war, relentless war, war to the last dollar and to the last drop of blood, war to the death of the Southern Confederacy or to the last gasp of the Federal Government. With the new year came the Bismarckian War Secretary Stanton, man of blood and iron, who always seemed to both fear and hate Lincoln, the only man he ever did fear and who, strangely enough, was the last to look into Lincoln's living eyes, and in that moment utter Lincoln's greatest eulogy: "Now he belongs to the Ages"; and with Stanton's coming an electric thrill went through the whole War Department. But even Stanton was less relentless than Lincoln, except when Lincoln's sympathies were touched by a personal appeal and to exercise clemency would not affect his progress toward the goal toward which his face was unalterably set. In the East there was an immediate aggressivity. Burnside took command of the Department of North Carolina, Roanoke Island was seized, Newbern fell, Fort Pulaski succumbed, Beaufort was occupied, and the Eastern seaboard became a prison wall to the Confederacy. In the West, Grant was forging to the fore. Forts Henry and Donelson yielded to his pounding, New Madrid, Island No. 10, and, finally, Shiloh. The navy, too, felt the surge of the new regime. The Monitor, by a single combat à outrance, worsted the Merrimac, the Confederate terror, while only a month later Farragut, lashed to the mast, had sailed victorious, through a tempest of flame and destruction, to the city of New Orleans, and hoisted over the mint the Stars and Stripes. All Southern Illinois was stirred by these mighty movements, all of them so adverse to the hopes and prayers of the Southern element; and nowhere was there greater bitterness felt than in New Richmond. And to think that their own townsmen, Noss and Blavey, had persuaded many of the very flower of Raleigh County's young manhood to go to the war! And Logan, for whom they had often voted, was now in high command in the Union army; and that, altogether, there now were in the neighborhood of forty regiments of Illinois men fighting under the standard of the Galena tanner. Even the War Democrats were far from being happy. They knew they were distrusted by their Union colleagues, and were scorned by their former confederates. Besides, to lawyers, like Judge Gildersleeve, the new legislation by Congress was regarded as being revolutionary, while Mr. Lincoln's acts were profoundly alarming. But to Southern sympathizers, like Dr. Culpepper and Jedediah Grant, each day brought a fresh crucifixion. Fortunately, Jedediah Grant possessed a happy optimism and a saving sense of humor-in short, he was more a man of the world and had the sportsman's disposition, the temper of a soldier of fortune; hence he could be a good loser whether the stake was great or small. Not so Dr. Culpepper. He could not bend; he could not retreat; it was impossible for him to compromise. This possibly was due to a double strain of Indian blood; for, besides the blood of Pocahontas, the royal founder of the F. F. V.'s, two hundred years later at Cumberland Gap, as the Culpeppers were gradually following the tide of civilization westward, a Culpepper had married another Indian princess, Zohanozoheton-Herald of Dusk and Dawnso named because, though her coming was heralded at Dusk, she was not born till Dawn. She was the only child of the famous Chief Razometah, who, though the steadfast friend of the whites, was noted for his implacable hatreds and turbulent spirit when smarting under some real or fancied injury. If there was wanting documentary proof of the Indian ancestry of the Culpeppers, the straight jet-black hair, eagle eyes, and a certain Indian terseness and directness of speech and action of Dr. Culpepper, and the wild beauty |