“And so you told me a story.  And all the rest—­is a story, too.  Oh, Virgie!  Virgie!”

“I didn’t!” she cried, the big tears breaking, out at last.  “I didn’t tell you stories’.  Only jus’ a little one—­for Daddy—­an’ Gen’ral Lee.”

She was sobbing now, and the man looked down upon her in genuine compassion, his own eyes swimming at her childish grief, his soldier heart athrob and aching at the duty he must perform.

“I’m sorry, dear,” he sighed, removing her doll and dragging the table across the floor to a point directly beneath the scuttle in the ceiling.

“What are you goin’ to do?” she asked in terror, following as he moved.  “Oh, what are you goin’ to do?”

He did not reply.  He could not; but when he placed a chair upon the table and prepared to mount, then Virgie understood.

“You shan’t!  You shan’t!” she cried out shrilly.  “He’s my daddy—­and you shan’t.”

She pulled at the table, and when he would have put her aside, as gently as he could, she attacked him fiercely, in a childish storm of passion, sobbing, striking at him with her puny fists.  The soldier bowed his head and moved away.

“Oh, I can’t!  I can’t!” he breathed, in conscience-stricken pain.  “There must be some other way; and still—­”

He stood irresolute, gazing through the open door, watching his men as they hunted for a fellow man; listening to the sounds that floated across the stricken fields—­the calls of his troopers; the locusts in the sun-parched woods chanting their shrill, harsh litany of drought; but more insistent still came the muffled boom of the big black guns far down the muddy James.  They called to him, these guns, in the hoarse-tongued majesty of war, bidding him forget himself, his love, his pity—­all else, but the grim command to a marching host—­a host that must reach its goal, though it marched on a road of human hearts.

The soldier set his teeth and turned to the little rebel, deciding on his course of action; best for her, best for the man who lay in the loft above, though now it must seem a brutal cruelty to both.

“Well, Virgie,” he said, “since you haven’t told me what I want to know, I’ll have to take you—­and give you to the Yankees.”

He stepped toward her swiftly and caught her by the wrist.  She screamed in terror, fighting to break his hold, while the trap above them opened, and the head and shoulders of the Southerner appeared, his pistol held in his outstretched hand.

“Drop it, you hound!” he ordered fiercely.  “Drop it!”

The Northerner released his captive, but stood unmoved as he looked into the pistol’s muzzle and the blazing eyes of the cornered scout.

“I’m sorry,” he said, in quiet dignity.  “I’m very sorry; but I had to bring you out.”  He paused, then spoke again:  “And you needn’t bother about your gun.  If you’d had any ammunition, our fire would have been returned, back yonder in the woods.  The game’s up, Cary.  Come down!”