Under Fire: A Tale of the Shenandoah Valley — page 42: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

the | Saree oe comicbooks A TERRIBLE CATASTROPHE. See whose fate he was ignorant, and the young Pennsy]- vanian, in whom he had taken a large and increasing interest. There was another visitor also. Bertha McVane. “She haa learned of his condition aa the. papers. They had published a sensational account of the shooting as a most mysterious affair, in which nothing was known but the identity of the victim. The daughter of the South Carolina Senator found on calm reflection that it was no easy matter to relin- quish her regard—the strong attachment of a maid-— en’s first love—for her handsome lover, from whom she had parted that eventful night in a fit of pique and anger because he put his loyalty to the Stars and Stripes. before his allegiance to her. When she learned that he lay dying, as it was sup- posed, at the City Hospital, she put every considera- tion aside, and, like the true woman she was at heart, went to him. But it was days before she was permitted to. see him, and then, struggling with the delirium of a dis- ordered fancy, he could not recognize her. Before he became sufficiently rational to understand what was going on about him, Bertha was obliged to go to Montgomery with her mother, as the Senator had taken an important duty upon his shoulders: in the interest of the new Confederate States. And thus a reconciliation, which surely would have taken place, was indefinitely postponed. Royal Chetwood was convalescent when Moses Bluff, after the most indefatigable exertion, finally learned of his sister’s pathetic death and the real identity of her betrayer. It is safe to say that but for Captain Trafton? s dis- appearance from his usual haunts, and the impossibil- ‘ity of tracking him, after days of patient effort, alone com