Virginia fairly flew into the house and up the stairs.  Gaining her room, she shut the door and turned the key, as though he might pursue her there.  The man’s face had all at once become a terror.  She threw herself on the lounge and buried her face in her hands, and she saw it still leering at her with a new confidence.  Presently she grew calmer; rising, she put on the plainest of her scanty wardrobe, and went down the stairs, all in a strange trepidation new to her.  She had never been in fear of a man before.  She hearkened over the banisters for his voice, heard it, and summoned all her courage.  How cowardly she had been to leave her father alone with him.

Eliphalet stayed to tea.  It mattered little to him that Mrs. Colfax ignored him as completely as if his chair had been vacant He glanced at that lady once, and smiled, for he was tasting the sweets of victory.  It was Virginia who entertained him, and even the Colonel never guessed what it cost her.  Eliphalet himself marvelled at her change of manner, and gloated over that likewise.  Not a turn or a quiver of the victim’s pain is missed by your beast of prey.  The Colonel was gravely polite, but preoccupied.  Had he wished it, he could not have been rude to a guest.  He offered Mr. Hopper a cigar with the same air that he would have given it to a governor.

“Thank’ee, Colonel, I don’t smoke,” he said, waving the bog away.

Mrs. Colfax flung herself out of the room.

It was ten o’clock when Eliphalet reached Miss Crane’s, and picked his way up the front steps where the boarders were gathered.

“The war doesn’t seem to make any difference in your business, Mr. Hopper,” his landlady remarked, “where have you been so late?”

“I happened round at Colonel Carvel’s this afternoon, and stayed for tea with ’em,” he answered, striving to speak casually.

Miss Crane lingered in Mrs. Abner Reed’s room later than usual that night.

CHAPTER III

THE SCOURGE OF WAR

“Virginia,” said Mrs. Colfax, the next morning on coming downstairs, “I am going back to Bellegarde today.  I really cannot put up with such a person as Comyn had here to tea last night.”

“Very well, Aunt Lillian.  At what time shall I order the carriage?”

The lady was surprised.  It is safe to say that she had never accurately gauged the force which Virginia’s respect for her elders, and affection for her aunt through Clarence, held in check.  Only a moment since Mrs. Colfax had beheld her niece.  Now there had arisen in front of her a tall person of authority, before whom she deferred instinctively.  It was not what Virginia said, for she would not stoop to tirade.  Mrs. Colfax sank into a chair, seeing only the blurred lines of a newspaper the girl had thrust into her hand.

“What—­what is it?” she gasped.  “I cannot read.”

“There has been a battle at Wilson’s Creek,” said Virginia, in an emotionless voice.  “General Lyon is killed, for which I suppose we should be thankful.  More than seven hundred of the wounded are on their way here.  They are bringing them one hundred and twenty miles, from Springfield to Rollo, in rough army wagons, with scarcely anything to eat or drink.”