all,
except that I had caught the hammers of Alf's gun.

"I don't see how you kept from killing them when you got the chance,"
she said, leaning with her elbows on the table and her chin in her
hands, musing: "I don't understand how you could keep from it."

Alf threw down his knife and fork and struck the table with his fist. "I
wanted to kill Scott--had a bead on him, but Bill grabbed my gun.
Guinea, I'm glad you stand by me, you and father; but the General thinks
I was wrong, and I was just about to think that everybody's heart was
right but mine. I am glad you are with me, Guinea."

I looked at her as she sat there, musing; her hair was tangled as if a
storm of thought had swept through her head, and sorely I wondered
whether a care for me had been borne through the storm. I forgot the
presence of Alf; I forgot everything except that I would have given my
blood and my soul to please her, and with bitterness I said: "Oh, if I
had known that you wanted him killed I would not only have let Alf kill
him--I would have killed him myself."

She looked up from her attitude of musing and met my outbreak with a
quiet laugh. "The bigger a man is the sillier he is," she said, still
laughing. "Why, I don't want him dead. I wouldn't like to have anyone
killed. I merely wondered how, having come so close to being burned up,
you could keep from killing him. I thought that I understood most men,
but I don't understand you, Mr. Hawes."

"Yes, you do!" I cried; "you understand me too well, and that is why you
torture me."

"What!" exclaimed Alf, springing to his feet, "are you on the gridiron?
Has she got you where somebody has got me? By--there comes mother."

I looked back as I passed out of the room, and Guinea sat there, musing.
Alf put his arm about me as we went up the stairs. We did not light the
lamp, but sat down in the dark, sat there and for a long time were
silent.

"Bill, oh, Bill."

"Yes," I answered.

"Bill, don't ask me anything. Father may tell you something to-morrow.
God bless you, Bill. You have stood by me. Good-night."

CHAPTER IX.

It must have been daylight before I worried my way into a sleep that
seemed jagged and sharp-cornered with many an evil turn; and when I
awoke the sun was shining. I looked out, and far across the field I saw
Alf, walking behind his plow. The hour was late for one to rise in the
country, for the sun was far above the tops of the trees. But I cared
not for any