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British Empire—nor could one stand against its might. We want to see this happen—do you understand? We have the ghastly feeling that my darling Albert will never sleep at peace until this is done." She twisted her black kerchief in her hands, unaware that she was rolling and unrolling it. She stared unseeingly into the distance, her wrinkled frown deepened. "I dream of him, almost nightly. Looking as he did—so many years ago. How handsome he was! But he does not appear to see me in my dreams. It is so awful. I try to talk to him—but I cannot find the words. He looks so unhappy with downcast eyes and a most somber mien. It is these Americans, I know it! They killed him and now they laugh at us." Her voice shrill and angry. "They laugh—thinking that they can defeat the might of the British Empire. Something must be done to bring them to heel!"
    There was no answer to that. The Duke muttered some pleasantries, then turned on the seat to look out of the window. When he did he felt something rustle in his breast pocket. That's right—he remembered now—an aide had given him a message just before the ceremony. He dug the paper out and read it quickly.
    "Damn and blast," he muttered.
    "What is it?" Victoria asked, frowning. She had an aversion to strong language. He waved the paper.
    "That Home Office clerk they arrested, the one who seemed to come into money so suddenly. Weeks was his name."
    "What about him?"
    "He talked. Confessed. I imagine they had to use a bit of persuasion, which I am sure that he richly deserved. Turns out that he really was a traitor, a damn spy, selling Britain's most vital secrets to the Yankees. Goodness knows what he told them. Traitor. And he wasn't even Irish. That I would have believed. Indeed."
    "An Englishman. We find that hard to give credence to. What will they do with him? Is there to be a trial?"
    "No need to wash our dirty linen in public. In fact it has already been done. A self-confessed spy made for a speedy trial. Found guilty. Hung him next to the traitor's gate. Buried him in the tower. Should have been drawn and quartered first." He crumpled the paper and threw it onto the floor.
    There were crowds in the street outside to see the Queen go by, since she rarely came to Ireland. Urchins ran beside the carriage and cheered wildly, as did the onlookers.
    The carriage, and its squadron of mounted guards, turned a corner and passed now through a meaner neighborhood of narrow streets. Rubbish littered the broken pavements here, spilled over into the gutters. There were no cheers to be heard here, even a few backs were turned as shawled women walked away from the carriage and the soldiers. The Queen was too filled with sorrow for her departed Albert to notice. Not so the Duke who, like many of his class, rather detested Ireland and her peoples.
    "Filthy Catholics," he muttered to himself. Pulled his hat low on his forehead and stared angrily ahead.

    Across the width of the Atlantic Ocean lay WashingtonCity, once again the capital of a land at peace. For the moment. Dark clouds were forming on the horizon and the future was not clear, not clear at all.
    "You are of a much sorrowful aspect," Abraham Lincoln said when Judah P. Benjamin was ushered into his office. The portly Southerner nodded silent agreement, his jowls wobbling. He dropped heavily into a chair but did not speak until John Nicolay, Lincoln's secretary, had left, closing the door behind him.
    "I am beset by troubles, sir, burdened by sorrows. It seems that when I lay down one encumbrance I pick two more up. Changing an entire society and how it thinks and works is no easy thing. This process of change—what shall we call it?"
    "Reconstruction?" Lincoln suggested.
    "Not quite—because nothing has been torn down to rebuild. I think 'reformation' is more accurate. We are reforming a whole society and no one seems to like it. The Freedman's Bureau is still a shell, filled with volunteers who wish to do good for the former