“They’re much too clever to employ a hussy like that, who shows her hand at every turn, either as a spy or a messenger of spies,—­and the mulattoes are too stupid, to say nothing of their probable fidelity to us.  No, General, if we are watched, it is by an eagle, and not a mocking-bird.  Miss Faulkner has nothing worse about her than her tongue; and there isn’t the nigger blood in the whole South that would risk a noose for her, or for any of their masters or mistresses!”

It was, therefore, perhaps, with some mitigation of his usual critical severity that he saw her walking before him alone in the lane as he rode home to quarters.  She was apparently lost in a half-impatient, half-moody reverie, which even the trotting hoof-beats of his own and his orderly’s horse had not disturbed.  From time to time she struck the myrtle hedge beside her with the head of a large flower which hung by its stalk from her listless hands, or held it to her face as if to inhale its perfume.  Dismissing his orderly by a side path, he rode gently forward, but, to his surprise, without turning, or seeming to be aware of his presence, she quickened her pace, and even appeared to look from side to side for some avenue of escape.  If only to mend matters, he was obliged to ride quickly forward to her side, where he threw himself from his horse, flung the reins on his arm, and began to walk beside her.  She at first turned a slightly flushed cheek away from him, and then looked up with a purely simulated start of surprise.

“I am afraid,” he said gently, “that I am the first to break my own orders in regard to any intrusion on your privacy.  But I wanted to ask you if I could give you any aid whatever in the change you think of making.”

He was quite sincere,—­had been touched by her manifest disturbance, and, despite his masculine relentlessness of criticism, he had an intuition of feminine suffering that was in itself feminine.

“Meaning, that you are in a hurry to get rid of me,” she said curtly, without raising her eyes.

“Meaning that I only wish to expedite a business which I think is unpleasant to you, but which I believe you have undertaken from unselfish devotion.”

The scant expression of a reserved nature is sometimes more attractive to women than the most fluent vivacity.  Possibly there was also a melancholy grace in this sardonic soldier’s manner that affected her, for she looked up, and said impulsively,—­

“You think so?”

But he met her eager eyes with some surprise.

“I certainly do,” he replied more coldly.  “I can imagine your feelings on finding your uncle’s home in the possession of your enemies, and your presence under the family roof only a sufferance.  I can hardly believe it a pleasure to you, or a task you would have accepted for yourself alone.”

“But,” she said, turning towards him wickedly, “what if I did it only to excite my revenge; what if I knew it would give me courage to incite my people to carry war into your own homes; to make you of the North feel as I feel, and taste our bitterness?”