When later, for his sake, she faced the darkness of midnight, a peril she dared not contemplate, and the cruel misjudgment which would follow her action if discovered, something deeper awoke in her nature—­something kindled into strong, perplexing life when, in his passionate gratitude, he had snatched her in his arms and, as she had said, “given her his whole heart because he couldn’t help himself.”  From that moment, on her part there had been no more merely kind, tranquil thoughts about Scoville, but a shy, trembling, blushing self-consciousness even when in solitude his image rose before her.

As she sought to regain composure after the last interview with her cousin, and to think of her best course in view of what seemed his dangerous knowledge, a truth, kept back thus far by solemn and absorbing scenes, suddenly became dear to her.  The spirit of all-consuming selfishness again manifested by Whately, revealed as never before the gulf of abject misery into which she would have fallen as his wife.  “If it hadn’t been for Lieutenant Scoville I might now have been his despairing bond slave,” she thought; “I might have been any way if the Northern officer were any other kind of a man, brutal, coarse, as I had been led to expect, or even indifferent and stupid.  I might have been forced into relations from which I could not escape and then have learned afterward what noble, unselfish men there are in the world.  Oh, I could marry Allan Scoville, I could love him and devote my life to him wholly, knowing all the time that I needn’t protect myself, because he would always be a kinder, truer, better protector.  How little I have done for him compared with that from which he has saved me!”

There was a knock at the door and Zany quickly entered.  “I des slip off while ole miss in de sto’-room, ter gib you a warnin’, Miss Lou.  Hain’t had no charnce till dis minit.  Dat ar ole fox, Perkins, been snoopin’ roun’ yistidy arter we un’s tracks en las’ night he tell Mad Whately a heap ob his ’jecterin’.”

“But, Zany,” said Miss Lou, “you don’t think they know anything.”

“Reck’n hit’s all des ‘jecterin’,” Zany replied.  “Kyant be nufin’ else.  We des got ter face hit out.  Doan you fear on me.  We uns mus’ des star stupid-like ef dey ax questions,” and she whisked off again.

The girl felt that the spirit of Zany’s counsel would be the best policy to adopt.  While she might not “star stupid-like,” she could so coldly ignore all reference to Scoville’s escape as to embarrass any one who sought to connect her with it.  In the clearer consciousness of her feeling toward the Union officer her heart grew glad and strong at the thought of the service she had rendered him, nor did it shrink at suffering for his sake.  A gratitude quite as strong as his own now possessed her that he had been the means of keeping her from a union dreaded even as an ignorant child, and now known, by the love which made her a woman, to be earthly perdition.