“Yes, I know, and have thought of all nearly every moment.  I am only too thankful that you have survived.  You have gone to the limit of human endurance and must sleep.  The less you and Louise say to each other for a short time the better.  After you have both grown calmer and have had a chance to think you will see things in a different light.”

“Mother, do you think I mean to be thwarted by that girl?  I would marry her now from pure pride—­for the sake of humbling her and teaching her that she made the mistake of her life in so crossing my will and in subjecting me to the mortification I endured this morning.”

“Madison! actuated by such motives, you’ll never win her!  If you will closely follow my advice I believe you can succeed.  I must tell you plainly that if you join with brother and his wife in their tactics it will always end much as it did this morning.”

“Well, anyhow, I have that cursed Yankee cub that she went walking with in my power.”

“What!  Lieutenant Scoville?”

“Yes; he’s a prisoner and Perkins is helping watch him.”

“Then I implore you not to let Louise know it.  She saw that this Scoville might have killed you.  She is merely friendly toward him because, instead of treating us rudely, as she was led to believe he would, he was very polite and considerate when we were in his power.  That wretch Perkins tried to shoot him to-day and probably would have succeeded but for Louise,” and she narrated the circumstances.

Her son frowned only the darker from jealousy and anger.

“Oh, Madison! why won’t you see things as they are?” his mother resumed.  “If you had treated this Yankee officer with kindness and thanked him for his leniency toward us, you would have taken a long step in her favor.  If you were trying to make her hate you, how could you set about it more skilfully?”

“Mother,” he replied doggedly, “if Lou had married me, even if she had yielded reluctantly, I would have been her slave; but she has defied me, humiliated and scoffed at me, and I shall never whine and fawn for her favor again.  I don’t believe it would be of any use.  If I should change my tactics she would only despise and laugh at me.  What’s more, my very nature revolts at such a change.  I can’t and won’t make it.  She shall learn to fear me.  Women marry for fear as well as love.  This Scoville gives me a chance to teach her the first lesson.  He shall be sent by daylight to a Southern prison and that will be the last of him.  Lou shall learn, as all will find out, that it’s poor policy to thwart me.  That major who interfered so impudently in our affairs is dead.”

“Oh, Madison!”

“You needn’t look so.  I had nothing to do with it.  There were plenty of Yankee bullets flying to-day.  All I mean to say is that it will prove serious for any one to cross my path.  Fate is on the side of a man who will have his own way, and Lou will discover this fact sooner or later.”