“I shall never wed any woman but you.  Can you feel as deeply as that?  Will you wed no man but me?”

She fluttered the cherry ribbons on the bonnet and fixed a stray curl in front of one ear.

“Have you a right to ask that?  I might wait a time for you to come back—­to your senses and to me, but—­”

“Good-bye, darling!”.

“What, will you go that way—­not kiss me?  He is still two blocks away.”

“I am so weak for you, sweet—­the little boy in me is crying for you, but he must not have what he wants.  What he wants would leave his heart rebellious and not perfect with the Lord.  It’s best not,” he continued, with an effort at a smile and in a steadier tone.  “It would mean so much to me—­oh, so very much to me—­and so very little to you—­and that’s no real kiss.  I’d rather remember none of that kind—­and don’t think I was churlish—­it’s only because the little boy—­I will go after my father now, and God bless you!”

He turned away.  A few paces on he met Captain Girnway, jaunty, debonair, smiling, handsome in his brass-buttoned uniform of the Carthage Grays.

“I have just left the ferry, Mr. Rae.  The wagon with your mother has gone over.  The other had not yet come down.  Some of the men appear to be a little rough this morning.  Your people are apt to provoke them by being too outspoken, but I left special orders for the good treatment of yourself and outfit.”

With a half-smothered “thank you,” he passed on, not trusting himself to say more to one who was not only the enemy of his people, but bent, seemingly, on deluding a young woman to the loss of her soul.  He heard their voices in cheerful greeting, but did not turn back.  With eyes to the front and shoulders squared he kept stiffly on his way through the silent, deserted streets to the ferry.

Fifteen minutes’ walk brought him to the now busy waterside.  The ferry, a flat boat propelled by long oars, was landing when he came into view, and he saw his father’s wagon driven on.  He sped down the hill, pushed through the crowd of soldiers standing about, and hurried forward on the boat to let the old man know he had come.  But on the seat was another than his father.  He recognised the man, and called to him.

“What are you doing there, Brother Keaton?  Where’s my father?”

The man had shrunk back under the wagon-cover, having seemingly been frightened by the soldiers.

“I’ve taken your father’s place, Brother Rae.”

“Did he cross with Brother Wright?”

“Yes—­he—­” The man hesitated.  Then came an interruption from the shore.

“Come, clear the gangway there so we can load!  Here are some more of the damned rats we’ve hunted out of their holes!”

The speaker made a half-playful lunge with his bayonet at a gaunt, yellow-faced spectre of a man who staggered on to the boat with a child in his arms wrapped in a tattered blue quilt.  A gust of the chilly wind picked his shapeless, loose-fitting hat off as he leaped to avoid the bayonet-point, and his head was seen to be shaven.  The crowd on the bank laughed loud at his clumsiness and at his grotesque head.  Joel Rae ran to help him forward on the boat.