Her eyes condemned that, and I felt the slightest indiscretion on my part would result in betrayal.  Perhaps even then she regretted her hasty action, and sought some excuse for blurting out the truth.  Fortunately conversation drifted into safe channels.  Bell was full of reminiscences of Big Shanty, requiring on my part but brief acquiescence, and, after a very few personal questions by the others, sufficiently direct to demand reply, Beauregard asked me about the disposition of Johnston’s forces, to which I was fortunately able to respond intelligently, giving him many details, sufficiently interesting, although of no great value.  To his desire for information relative to Chambers’ advance from the south, and the number of his troops, I was obliged to guess rather vaguely, but finally got away with a vivid description of Miss Hardy’s night ride, which caused even the girl herself to laugh, and chime in with a word or two.  With the officers the meal was nearly completed when I joined them, and it was therefore not long until the general, noting the others had finished, pushed back his own chair.

“We will adjourn to the parlor, gentlemen,” he said genially, “I shall have other orders to despatch presently.  When you finish, Major, I shall be glad to talk with you more at length; until then we leave you to the care of Miss Hardy.”

They passed out, and as the door closed behind the last straggler, she came slowly across the room, and sat down in a chair opposite me, resting her flushed cheek on one hand.

“What made you do it?” I asked, impelled by a curiosity which could no longer be restrained.

“Oh, I don’t know,” and her lashes lifted, giving me one swift glimpse into the depths of her eyes.  “A mere impulse when I first realized the danger of your position.”

“Then it was for me?—­because you cared?”

“Perhaps I would have done the same for any one—­I am a woman.”

“I can comprehend that, yes,” I insisted, “but am not willing to believe mere sympathy would carry you so far.  Was there not, back of all, a feeling almost of friendship?”

“I make no such acknowledgment.  I spoke before I thought; before I even realized what my words meant.  And you?—­how came you there?”

I told her briefly, answering her questions without reserve, rejoicing in the interest she exhibited in my narrative, and eager to know at once how far I could still presume on her assistance.  I wanted to get away, to escape from the web about me, but I could not understand this girl, or comprehend how far I dare venture on her good nature.  Already I knew that some feeling—­either of friendship or sympathy—­had impelled her to save me from immediate betrayal, but would she go even further?  Everything between us conspired to bewilder me as to her real purpose.  Even as I concluded, it seemed to me her eyes hardened, and the expression of her face changed.

“That was extremely clever, Lieutenant Galesworth,” she commented quietly.  “I never knew the chimney touched that wall.  Now what do you propose doing?”