phalet listened for the crack of a pistol,
and feared that a clean hole might be bored there any minute. Once
outside, he took to the white road, leaving a trail of dust behind him
that a wagon might have raised. Fear lent him wings, but neglected to
lift his feet.

The Colonel passed his arm around his daughter, and pulled his goatee
thoughtfully. And Virginia, glancing shyly upward, saw a smile in the
creases about his mouth: She smiled, too, and then the tears hid him
from her.

Strange that the face which in anger withered cowards and made men look
grave, was capable of such infinite tenderness,--tenderness and sorrow.
The Colonel took Virginia in his arms, and she sobbed against his
shoulder, as of old.

"Jinny, did he--?"

"Yes--"

"Lige was right, and--and you, Jinny--I should never have trusted him.
The sneak!"

Virginia raised her head. The sun was slanting in yellow bars through
the branches of the great trees, and a robin's note rose above the bass
chorus of the frogs. In the pauses, as she listened, it seemed as if she
could hear the silver sound of the river over the pebbles far below.

"Honey," said the Colonel,--"I reckon we're just as poor as white
trash."

Virginia smiled through her tears.

"Honey," he said again, after a pause, "I must keep my word and let him
have the business."

She did not reproach him.

"There is a little left, a very little," he continued slowly, painfully.
"I thank God that it is yours. It was left you by Becky--by your mother.
It is in a railroad company in New York, and safe, Jinny."

"Oh, Pa, you know that I do not care," she cried. "It shall be yours and
mine together. And we shall live out here and be happy."

But she glanced anxiously at him nevertheless. He was in his familiar
posture of thought, his legs slightly apart, his felt hat pushed back,
stroking his goatee. But his clear gray eyes were troubled as they
sought hers, and she put her hand to her breast.

"Virginia," he said, "I fought for my country once, and I reckon I'm
some use yet awhile. It isn't right that I should idle here, while
the South needs me, Your Uncle Daniel is fifty-eight, and Colonel of a
Pennsylvania regiment.--Jinny, I have to go."

Virginia said nothing. It was in her blood as well as his. The Colonel
had left his young wife, to fight in Mexico; he had come home to lay
flowers on her grave. She knew that he thought of this; and, too, that
his heart was rent at leaving her.