coldly of something else, while she replied in like fashion. He was sure
now that Sefton had transferred his love to her, and if she did not
return it she at least looked upon him with favouring eyes. As for
himself, he had become an outsider. He remembered her refusal of him.
Then the impression she gave him once that she had fled from Richmond,
partly and perhaps chiefly to save him, was false. On second thought no
doubt it was false. And despite her statement she might really have been
a spy! How could he believe her now?

Miss Grayson, quiet and observant, noticed the change. She liked this
young man, so serious and steady and so different from the passionate
and reckless youths who are erroneously taken by outsiders to be the
universal type of the South. Her heart rallied to the side of her
cousin, Lucia Catherwood, with whom she had shared hardships and dangers
and whose worth she knew; but with the keen eye of the kindly old maid
she saw what troubled Prescott, and being a woman she could not blame
him. Taking upon herself the burden of the conversation, she asked
Prescott about his southern journey, and as he told her of the path that
led him through mountains, the glory of the autumn woods and the peace
of the wilderness, there was a little bitterness in his tone in
referring to those lonesome but happy days. He had felt then that he was
coming north to the struggles and passions of a battleground, and now he
was finding the premonition true in more senses than one.

Lucia sat in the far corner of the little room where the flickering
firelight fell across her face and dress. They had not lighted candle
nor lamp, but the rich tints in her hair gleamed with a deeper sheen
when the glow of the flames fell across it. Prescott's former sense of
proprietorship was going, and she seemed more beautiful, more worth the
effort of a lifetime than ever before. Here was a woman of mind and
heart, one not bounded by narrow sectionalism, but seeing the good
wherever it might be. He felt that he had behaved like a prig and a
fool. Why should he be influenced by the idle words of some idle man in
the street? He was not Lucia Catherwood's guardian; if there were any
question of guardianship, she was much better fitted to be the guardian
of him.

Had he obeyed this rush of feeling he would have swept away all
constraint by words abrupt, disjointed perhaps, but alive with
sincerity, and Miss Grayson gave him ample opportunity b