Clarence muttered his dismay as he followed his cousin to the steps.

“What is it?” asked Virginia, alarmed.

“Nothing; I forgot to sign the deed to the Elleardsville property, and Worington wants it to-night.”  Cutting short Sambo’s explanations, Clarence vaulted on the horse.  Virginia was at his stirrup.  Leaning over in the saddle, he whispered:  “I’ll be back in a quarter of an hour Will you wait?”

“Yes,” she said, so that he barely heard.

“Here?”

She nodded.

He was away at a gallop, leaving Virginia standing bareheaded to the night, alone.  A spring of pity, of affection for Clarence suddenly welled up within her.  There came again something of her old admiration for a boy, impetuous and lovable, who had tormented and defended her with the same hand.

Patriotism, stronger in Virginia than many of us now can conceive, was on Clarence’s side.  Ambition was strong in her likewise.  Now was she all afire with the thought that she, a woman, might by a single word give the South a leader.  That word would steady him, for there was no question of her influence.  She trembled at the reckless lengths he might go in his dejection, and a memory returned to her of a day at Glencoe, before he had gone off to school, when she had refused to drive with him.  Colonel Carvel had been away from home.  She had pretended not to care.  In spite of Ned’s beseechings Clarence had ridden off on a wild thoroughbred colt and had left her to an afternoon of agony.  Vividly she recalled his home-coming in the twilight, his coat torn and muddy, a bleeding cut on his forehead, and the colt quivering tame.

In those days she had thought of herself unreservedly as meant for him.  Dash and courage and generosity had been the beacon lights on her horizon.  But now?  Were there not other qualities?  Yes, and Clarence should have these, too.  She would put them into him.  She also had been at fault, and perhaps it was because of her wavering loyalty to him that he had not gained them.

Her name spoken within the hall startled Virginia from her reverie, and she began to walk rapidly down the winding drive.  A fragment of the air to which they were dancing brought her to a stop.  It was the Jenny Lind waltz.  And with it came clear and persistent the image she had sought to shut out and failed.  As if to escape it now, she fairly ran all the way to the light at the entrance and hid in the magnolias clustered beside the gateway.  It was her cousin’s name she whispered over and over to herself as she waited, vibrant with a strange excitement.  It was as though the very elements might thwart her wail.  Clarence would be delayed, or they would miss her at the house, and search.  It seemed an eternity before she heard the muffled thud of a horse cantering in the clay road.