Shelley.
Not many weeks after the conversation (not altogether imaginary) at the White House, a young man in the uniform of a captain lay on the sofa in a room at Willard’s Hotel in Washington. He lay reading a newspaper, but the paleness of his face showed that he had been suffering either from illness or a serious wound. This young man was Onslow. In a cavalry skirmish at Winchester, in which the Rebels had been handsomely routed, he had been shot through the lungs, the ball coming out at his back. There was one chance in a thousand that the direction taken by the ball would be such that the wound should not prove fatal; and this thousandth chance happened in his favor. Thanks to a naturally vigorous constitution, he was rapidly convalescing. He began to be impatient once more for action.
There was a knock at the door, and Vance entered.
“How is our cavalry captain to-day?” he asked cheerily.
“Better and better, my dear Mr. Vance.”
“Let me feel of his pulse. Excellent! Firm, regular! Appetite?”
“Improving daily. He ate two boiled eggs and a lamb chop for breakfast, not to speak of a slice of aerated bread.”
“Come now,—that will do. He will be ready soon for a bullet through his other lung. But he must not get restless. There’s plenty of fighting in store for him.”
“Mr. Vance, I’ve been pondering the strange story of your life; your interview with my father on board the Pontiac; the loss of the Berwicks; the supposed loss of their child; the developments by which you were led to suspect that the child was kidnapped; Peek’s unavailing search for the rascal Hyde; the interview with Quattles, confirming your suspicion of foul play; and finally your interview last week in New York with the mulatto woman, Hattie Davy. Let me ask if Hattie thinks she could still identify the lost child.”
“Yes, by certain marks on her person. She at once recognized the little sleeve-button I got from Quattles.”