did they ever meet before?"

"Hanged if I know!"

"Well, say----"

The captain saw a curtain move at one of the windows. He cantered from
his position at the head of the column and steered his horse between two
flower beds.

"Well, good-bye!"

The squadron trampled slowly past.

"Good-bye!"

They shook hands.

He evidently had something enormously important to say to her, but it
seems that he could not manage it. He struggled heroically. The bay
charger, with his great mystically solemn eyes, looked around the corner
of his shoulder at the girl.

The captain studied a pine tree. The girl inspected the grass beneath
the window. The captain said hoarsely, "I don't suppose--I don't
suppose--I'll ever see you again!"

She looked at him affrightedly and shrank back from the window. He
seemed to have woefully expected a reception of this kind for his
question. He gave her instantly a glance of appeal.

She said, "Why, no, I don't suppose we will."

"Never?"

"Why, no, 'tain't possible. You--you are a--Yankee!"

"Oh, I know it, but----" Eventually he continued, "Well, some day, you
know, when there's no more fighting, we might----" He observed that she
had again withdrawn suddenly into the shadow, so he said, "Well,
good-bye!"

When he held her fingers she bowed her head, and he saw a pink blush
steal over the curves of her cheek and neck.

"Am I never going to see you again?"

She made no reply.

"Never?" he repeated.

After a long time, he bent over to hear a faint reply: "Sometimes--when
there are no troops in the neighbourhood--grandpa don't mind if I--walk
over as far as that old oak tree yonder--in the afternoons."

It appeared that the captain's grip was very strong, for she uttered an
exclamation and looked at her fingers as if she expected to find them
mere fragments. He rode away.

The bay horse leaped a flower bed. They were almost to the drive, when
the girl uttered a panic-stricken cry.

The captain wheeled his horse violently and upon his return journey went
straight through a flower bed.

The girl had clasped her hands. She beseeched him wildly with her eyes.
"Oh, please, don't believe it! I never walk to the old oak tree. Indeed,
I don't! I never--never--never walk there."

The bridle drooped on the bay charger's neck. The captain's figure
seemed limp. With an expression of profound dejection and gloom he
stared off at where the leaden sky met the dark green line of the woods.