And Anna:  What could she say after what she had seen?  Could she tell him—­with Flora, as it were, still in his arms—­could she explain that she had been seeking him to cast herself there?  Or if she stood mute until he should speak, what could he say to count one heart-throb against what she had seen?  Oh, before God! before God! it was not jealousy that could make her dumb or deaf to either of them.  She confessed its pangs.  Yes! yes! against both of them, when she remembered certain things or forgot this and that, it raged in her heart, tingled in the farthest reach of her starved and fever-dried veins.  Yet to God himself, to whom alone she told it, to God himself she protested on her knees it did not, should not, could not rule her.  What right had she to give it room?  Had she not discerned from the beginning that those two were each other’s by natural destiny?  Was it not well, was it not God-sent to all three, that in due time, before too late, he and she—­that other, resplendent she—­should be tried upon each other alone —­together?  Always hitherto she, Anna, had in some way, some degree, intervened, by some chance been thrust and held between them; but at length nature, destiny, had all but prevailed, when once more she—­stubbornly astray from that far mission of a city’s rescue so plainly hers—­had crashed in between to the shame and woe of all, to the gain of no cause, no soul, no sweet influence in all love’s universe.  Now, meeting Hilary, what might she do or say?

One thing!  Bid him, on exchange or escape—­if Heaven should grant the latter—­find again Flora, and in her companionship, at last unhindered, choose!  Yes, that would be justice and wisdom, mercy and true love, all in one.  But could she do it, say it?  She sprang up in bed to answer, “No-o-o!” no, she was no bloodless fool, she was a woman!  Oh, God of mercy and true love, no!  For reasons invincible, no! but most of all for one reason, one doubt, vile jealousy’s cure and despair’s antidote, slow to take form but growing as her strength revived, clear at last and all-sufficing; a doubt infinitely easier, simpler, kinder, and more blessed than to doubt true love.  Nay, no doubt, but a belief! the rational, life-restoring belief, that in that awful hour of twilight between the hosts, of twilight and delirium, what she had seemed to see she had but seemed to see.  Not all, ah, no, not all!  Hilary alive again and grappling with death to come at her call had been real, proved real; the rest a spectre of her fevered brain!  Meeting him now—­and, oh, to meet him now!—­there should be no questionings or explainings, but while he poured forth a love unsullied and unshaken she, scarce harkening, would with battle haste tell him, her life’s commander, the one thing of value, outvaluing all mere lovers’ love:  The fact that behind a chimney-panel of Callender House, in its old trivial disguise, lay yet that long-lost fund pledged to Mobile’s defense—­by themselves as lovers, by poor war-wasted Kincaid’s Battery, and by all its scattered sisters; the fund which must, as nearly on the instant as his and her daring could contrive, be recovered and borne thither for the unlocking of larger, fate-compelling resources of deliverance.