The next day Emily prepared herself to welcome the return of her lover, while Dr. Humphries proceeded to the railroad depot to meet him. In the meantime, we will give our readers a brief account of Harry's escape.

After leaving Chicago, Harry made his way through the country towards the Tennessee river. His journey was a dangerous one, for the people of Illinois where then highly elated at the successes which had attended the Yankee arms, and the few sympathisers that the South had in their midst, were afraid to express their sympathies. He, luckily, however, succeeded in finding out a worthy gentleman, who not only befriended him, but furnished the necessary means for his journey, and procured a passport for him to visit Nashville. Prepared for a continuation of his travel, Harry, who had been staying at the residence of his noble hearted host for three days, bade him adieu, and started on his way to Nashville. On arriving at Frankfort, Kentucky, he met with a man he had become acquainted with in Mississippi, but who, on account of his strong Union proclivities, was compelled to leave the South at the commencement of the war. This creature immediately recognized Harry, and knowing that he had always been an ardent Secessionist, conjectured that he was either a spy, or an escaped prisoner. Harry was accordingly arrested and carried before the military authorities, but his persistent denial of any knowledge of the man who had caused his arrest, and the passport he had received from the generous Illinoisan, induced the Yankee officer by whom he was examined, to release him, and permit his departure for Nashville.

Harry had many hair breadth escapes from detection and capture, but surmounting all the dangers which beset his path, he succeeded In reaching the Confederate lines in safety, and immediately started for Jackson. But one thing marred the joy he experienced at his daringly won freedom, and that was his ignorance of Alfred's fate. Had not the love of freedom been too strong in his breast, he would have returned and endeavored to find his friend, but the success of his escape, and the idea that Alfred may have pursued a different road, deterred him from so doing. He determined, however, to make enquiry on his return to Jackson, whether his friend had arrived there, he having promised Harry to call on Dr. Humphries after they should arrive in the Confederate lines. He was not aware of the wound his friend had received, for though the Chicago papers made a notice of the attempted escape, and wounding of one of the prisoners, the notice was never seen by him, as he had no opportunity of getting a newspaper.

On arriving at Jackson, the evening after he had forwarded his telegraphic dispatch, Harry found Dr. Humphries at the depot awaiting his arrival. After they had exchanged hearty expressions of delight at meeting each other again, they proceeded to the house where Emma was anxiously looking out for her lover.

The customary salutations between lovers who have been separated being over, Harry proceeded to give an account of his escape, which was listened to with great interest by his hearers.

"By the way," he remarked, as soon as he had concluded, "has a soldier giving his name as Wentworth, and claiming to be a friend of mine, called here within the last ten days."

"No one has called here of that name," replied Dr. Humphries.

"I am very anxious to receive some intelligence of him," remarked Harry, "He was the friend I mentioned, having made my escape with."

"He may have taken a different road to the one you pursued," Dr. Humphries observed.

"If I were satisfied in my mind that he did escape safely, my fears would be allayed," he answered, "but," he continued, "we left the gates of the prison together, and were not four yards apart when the treachery of the guard was discovered. We both started at a full run, and almost instantaneously the Yankees, who lay in ambush for us, fired, their muskets in the direction we were going. The bullets whistled harmless by me, and I continued my flight at the top of my speed, nor did I discover the absence of my friend until some distance from the prison, when stopping to take breath, I called him by name, and receiving no answer found out that he was not with me. I am afraid he might have been shot."

"Did you hear no cry after the Yankees had fired," enquired Dr. Humphries.

"No, and that is the reason I feel anxious to learn his fate. Had he uttered any cry, I should be certain that he was wounded, but the silence on his part may have been caused from instant death."

"You would have, heard him fall at any rate; had he been struck by the Yankee bullets," remarked Dr. Humphries.

"That is very doubtful," he replied. "I was running at such a rapid rate, and the uproar made by the Yankees was sufficient to drown the sound that a fall is likely to create."

"I really trust your friend is safe," said Dr. Humphries. "Perhaps, after all, he did not make any attempt to escape, but surrendered himself to the Yankees."

"There is not the slightest chance of his having done such a thing," Harry answered. "He was determined to escape, and had told me that he would rather be shot than be re-captured, after once leaving the prison. I shall never cease to regret the misfortune should he have fallen in our attempt to escape. His kindness to me at Fort Donelson had caused a warm friendship to spring up between us. Besides which, he has a wife and two small children in New Orleans, who were the sole cause of his attempting to escape. He informed me that they were not in very good circumstances, and should Alfred Wentworth have been killed at Camp Douglas, God help his poor widow and orphans!"

"Did you say his name was Alfred Wentworth," inquired Emma, for the first time joining in the conversation.

"Yes, and do you know anything about him?" he asked.

"No," she replied, "I know nothing of the gentleman, but father bought a slave on yesterday, who stated that she has belonged to a gentleman of New Orleans, of the name you mentioned just now."

"By what means did you purchase her?" asked Harry addressing himself to Dr. Humphries.

The Doctor related to him the circumstances which occasioned the purchase, as well as the statement of Elsy. Harry listened attentively, for the friendship he felt for his friend naturally made him interested in all that concerned Alfred, or his family.

"Is there no way by which I can discover where Mrs. Wentworth is residing at present?" he enquired, after a moment of thought.

"None that I could devise," answered Dr. Humphries. "I know nothing of the family personally, nor would I have known anything of their existence, had not chance carried me to the auction sale, at which I purchased Elsy."

"Call the girl here for me," Harry said: "I must learn something more of the departure of Mrs. Wentworth and her children from New Orleans, and endeavor to obtain a clue to her whereabouts. It is a duty I owe to the man who saved my life, that everything I can do for his family shall be performed."

Emma left the room as he was speaking, and shortly after returned, followed by Elsy.

"Here is the girl," she said, as she entered.

"So you belonged to Mr. Wentworth of New Orleans, did you?" Harry commenced.

"I used to belong to him," replied Elsy.

"What made Mrs. Wentworth leave New Orleans?" he asked, continuing his questions.

Elsy gave a long account of the villainy of Awtry, in the usual style adopted by negroes, but sufficiently intelligible for Harry to understand the cause of Mrs. Wentworth being compelled to abandon her home, and take refuge in the Confederate lines.

"Did not your mistress state where she was going," he asked.

"No, sah," replied Elsy. "My mistis jest told me good bye when she left wid de children. I promised her I would get away from de Yankees, but she forgot to tell me whar she was gwine to lib."

"Did she bring out plenty of money with her?" he enquired.

"Yes, sah," Elsy answered. She had seen the sum of money possessed by Mrs. Wentworth, on her departure from New Orleans, and it being a much larger amount than she had ever beheld before, made the faithful girl believe that her mistress had left with quite a fortune.

"Very well, you can go now," remarked Harry. "It is a satisfaction," he continued as Elsy left the room, "to know that Wentworth's wife is well provided with money, although it does appear strange that she should have a plenty of funds, when her husband informed me, while in prison, that the money he left her with could not maintain his wife and children for any great length of time."

"She may have been furnished with money by some friend, who intending to remain in the city, had no use for Confederate Treasury notes," Dr. Humphries remarked.

"That is very likely, and I trust it is so," observed Harry, "However," he continued, "I shall take steps on Monday next, to find out where Mrs. Wentworth is now residing."

On Monday the following advertisement appeared in the evening papers:

INFORMATION WANTED.

Any one knowing where Mrs. Eva Wentworth and her two children reside, will be liberally rewarded, by addressing the undersigned at this place. Mrs. Wentworth is a refugee from New Orleans, and the wife of a gallant soldier, now a prisoner of war.
Jackson,——1862.

H. SHACKLEFORD.

It was too late. Extensively published as it was, Mrs. Wentworth never saw it. Her hardships and trials had increased ten-fold; she was fast drifting before the storm, with breakers before, threatening to wreck and sink into the grave the wife and children of Alfred Wentworth.