“God forgive me, Olympia! escape is the last thing I think of now, when I am near you.  I was going to say I should never care to go back, but I know you wouldn’t think the better of me for that.”

“I don’t know.  Why should you go back?  The South is sure to be beaten.  We are conquering territory every day, from the armies at Donelson to the forts at New Orleans.  We shall beat you in Virginia so soon as General McClellan gives the word.”

“Even if that were the case, my duty and my honor would point to but one course—­to return to the natural course of exchange.”

“Honor?  Vincent, it is a vague term under such circumstances—­”

“I could not love you, dear, so much, loved I not honor more.  You know you gave me that for a motto.”

“Poetic rubbish, Mr. Soldier; but I must leave you now.  You will insist on talking, and, as I shall be held responsible to your mother and Rosa, I must be firm—­not another syllable!  Besides, the imprudence will keep you here longer, and if you are to be carried away you must get well at once.  I can’t leave mamma alone in Washington with such grief preying upon her.”

He answered with a glance of pitying pleading.  He looked so helpless—­so woe-begone—­that she bent over near his face to smooth his disordered bandages.  When she withdrew she was blushing very prettily, and Vincent was smiling in triumph.  “On these terms,” the smile seemed to say, “I will be mute for an age.”

What an adroit ally war is to love!  Here was the self-contained Olympia—­so confident of herself—­fond and yielding as Rosa; when war rushed in, infirmity came to the rescue of Vincent’s despairing passion.

Meanwhile, Jones began a systematic search among the prisoners for the missing Caribees.  Rosa joined with impatient ardor.  There were three thousand inmates of the improvised city, but no one resembling Jack or Dick could be found.  Linda, ministering to some of Vincent’s comrades, was piteously besought to ask her mistress’s good offices for an orderly in the small-pox ward.  This was a tent far off from the main barracks on the beach, attended only by a single surgeon and a corps of rather indifferent nurses.  Two of Vincent’s men were in this lazar, shut off from the world, for the soldier, reckless in battle, has a shuddering horror of this loathsome disease.  Rosa instantly resolved that she would herself nurse the plague-smitten rebels.  She had no fear of the disease, the truth being that she had only the vaguest idea of what it was.  With great difficulty she obtained permission to visit the outcast colony.  She was forced to enter the noisome purlieu alone, even the maid’s devotion rebelling against the nameless horror small-pox has for the African.