now."

"Its condition may become worse," she said meaningly.

He understood the look in her eyes and replied:

"You mean that Grant will come?"

"Yes!" she exclaimed, pointing toward the flame of the battle. "Can't
you see? Don't you know, Captain Prescott, that Grant will never turn
back? It is but three days since he fought a battle as great as
Gettysburg, and now he is fighting another. The man has come, and the
time for the South is at hand."

"But what a price--what a price!" said Prescott.

"Yes," she replied quickly; "but it is the South, not the North, that
demands payment."

Then she stopped, and brilliant colour flushed into her face.

"Forgive me for saying such things at such a time," she said. "I do not
hate anybody in the South, and I am now with Southern people. Credit it
to my bad taste."

But Prescott would not have it so. It was he who had spoken, he said,
and she had the right to reply. Then he asked her indirectly of herself,
and she answered willingly. Hers had been a lonely life, and she had
been forced to develop self-reliance, though perhaps it had taken her
further than she intended. She seemed still to fear that he would think
her too masculine, a bit unwomanly; but her loneliness, the lack of love
in her life, made a new appeal to Prescott. He admired her as she stood
there in her splendid young beauty and strength--a woman with a mind to
match her beauty--and wondered how his fleeting fancy could ever have
been drawn to any other. She was going to that hostile Richmond, where
she had been in such danger, and she would be alone there save for one
weak woman, watched and suspected like herself. He felt a sudden
overwhelming desire to protect her, to defend her, to be a wall between
her and all danger.

Far off on the northern horizon the battle flamed and rumbled, and a
faint reflection of its lurid glow fell on the forest where they stood.
It may be that its reflection fell on Prescott's ardent mind and
hastened him on.

"Lucia," he exclaimed, "you are going back to Richmond, where you will
be suspected, perhaps insulted! Give me the right to protect you from
everybody!"

"Give you the right!" she exclaimed, in surprise; but as she looked at
him the brilliant colour dyed her face and neck.

"Yes, Lucia," he said, "the greatest and holiest of all rights! Do you
not see that I love you? Be my wife! Give me the right as your husband
to stand between you and all danger!"

Still