[CHAPTER I.]
Two Friends—Walter Lane Harding and Tom Leslie—Merchant and Journalist—A Torn Dress and a Stalwart Champion—Tom Leslie's Story of Dexter Ralston—Three Meetings—An Incident on the Potomac—The Inauguration of Lincoln—A Warning of the Virginia Secession—Governmental Blindness—Friend or Foe to the Union?
[CHAPTER II.]
Richard Crawford and Josephine Harris—The Invalid and the Wild Madonna—An Odd Female Character and a Temptation—Discouragement and Consolation—Miss Joe Harris on the Character of Colonel Egbert Crawford—A Suggestion of Hatred and Murder—A New Agony for the Invalid—A Lady with an Attachment to Cerise Ribbon.
[CHAPTER III.]
A Scene at Judge Owen's—Mother and Daughter—Pretty Emily with One Lover Too Many—Emily's Determination, and Judge Owen's Ultimatum—A Pompous Judge playing Grand Signeur in his own Family—Aunt Martha to the Rescue—Her Story of Marriage without Love, Wedded Misery and Outrage—How Old is Colonel John Boadley Bancker, and what is the Character of Frank Wallace?
[CHAPTER IV.]
Harding and Leslie make Discoveries on Prince Street—Secesh Flags and Emblems of the Golden Circle—What do they mean?—Tom Leslie takes a Climb and a Tumble—The Red Woman—A Carriage Chase Up-town—A Mysterious House—Amateur Detectives under a Door-step, and what they saw and heard.
[CHAPTER V.]
Who was the Red Woman?—Tom Leslie's Strange Story of Parisian Life and Fortune-telling—The 20th of December, 1860—An Hour in the Rue la Reynie Ogniard—The Vision of the White Mist—The Secession of South Carolina seen across the Atlantic—Was the Sorceress in America?