And who knows what may happen to make you glad that, since there must be strife, I am one of the enemy rather than a stranger?  I feel that we shall be brought together in danger, when it may be my happiness to serve you or yours.  But, even if I am not so favored, I shall still ask your love.  You know our Southern ways.  Whom I love my mother loves.  But my mother and sister Rosa have loved you long and dearly.  They have known you as long as I have, and when you consent to come to us you will take no stranger’s place in the heart and home of the family.  Remember the motto you gave me.  You are a woman, therefore tender; I am daring, Heaven knows, in aspiring to such a reward as your love.  But I dare to love you; if you cast that love from you, love will lose its tenderness, bravery its daring.  One of the high mountains of hope whereon I sun my fainting soul is the knowledge that you love no one else.  I won’t say that you should in love hold to the ride ‘first come first served,’ but I do say, ‘first dare, first win.’  And when you reflect on what you said about the accident of war separating us, just put Jack in my place.  What would you think of a Southern girl who should refuse him because he fought on the side of his family and his State?  What is the old line?  ’I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honor more.’  I’m sure I couldn’t ask your love if there were not honor in my own.  The war will be over and forgotten in six months, but you and I are young; we have long years before us.  The right will win in the contest, and, right or wrong, I am yours, and only yours, while there are life in my body and hope in my soul.  Vincent.”

In a little glow of what was plainly not displeasure, the young woman “filed” this “writ of pre-emption,” as Jack afterward called it, in careful hiding, and resumed meditation of the writer.  It could not now be answered, for letters between the lines were subject to censorship, and Olympia perhaps shrank from adding to her lover’s misery by exposing his rejection to the unfeeling eyes of the postal agents.  There was pity in the resolve as well as prudence.  Had Vincent been able to read the workings of the lady’s mind, he would have donned his rebel gray with more buoyant joy that day in Richmond.  Another ally of the absent came in the course of the day.  Miss Boone, the daughter of the opulent contractor and chief local magnate, called to plan work for the soldiers.  Vincent’s name being mentioned, Miss Boone said, in the apparent effusion of girlish intimacy: 

“I like Mr. Atterbury very much.  He is a charming fellow.  But, for your family’s sake, I am glad he is away from this house.”  At Olympia’s surprised start she nodded as if to emphasize this, continuing:  “Yes, and for good reasons.  You know our house is the high court of abolitionism?  Well, papa’s cronies have made Mr. Atterbury’s visit cause of suspicion.”

“Suspicion?  What do you mean?”