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For the first time Miss Sally saw Courtland’s calm blood fly to his cheek and kindle in his eye. “You surely do not expect ME to tolerate this blind and insolent interference!” he said, rising to his feet.

She lifted her ungloved hand in deprecation. “Sit still, co’nnle. Yo’ ‘ve been a soldier, and yo’ know what duty is. Well! what’s yo’ duty to yo’ company?”

“It neither includes my private affairs nor regulates the beating of my heart. I will resign.”

“And leave me and Aunt Miranda and the plantation?”

“No! The company will find another superintendent to look after your aunt’s affairs and carry out our plans. And you, Sally–you will let me find you a home and fortune North? There is work for me there; there is room for you among my people.”

She shook her head slowly with a sweet but superior smile. “No, co’nnle! I didn’t believe in the wah, but the least I could do was to stand by my folks and share the punishment that I knew was coming from it. I despise this foolishness as much as yo’, but I can’t run away from it. Come, co’nnle, I won’t ask yo’ to forget this; mo’, I’ll even believe yo’ MEANT it, but yo’ ‘ll promise me yo’ won’t speak of it again as long as yo’ are with the company and Aunt Miranda and me! There mustn’t be more–there mustn’t even SEEM to be more–between us.”

“But then I may hope?” he said, eagerly grasping her hand.

“I promise nothing, for yo’ must not even have THAT excuse for speaking of this again, either from anything I do or may seem to do.” She stopped, released her hand, as her eyes were suddenly fixed on the distance. Then she said with a slight smile, but without the least embarrassment or impatience: “There’s Mr. Champney coming here now. I reckon he’s looking to see if that wreath is safe.”

Courtland looked up quickly. He could see the straw hat of the young Englishman just above the myrtle bushes in a path intersecting the avenue. A faint shadow crossed his face. “Let me know one thing more,” he said hurriedly. “I know I have no right to ask the question, but has–has–has Mr. Champney anything to do with your decision?”

She smiled brightly. “Yo’ asked just now if yo’ could have the same chance he and Chet Brooks had. Well, poor Chet is dead, and Mr. Champney–well!–wait and see.” She lifted her voice and called, “Mr. Champney!” The young fellow came briskly towards them; his face betrayed a slight surprise, but no discomfiture, as he recognized her companion.

“Oh, Mr. Champney,” said Miss Sally plaintively, “I’ve lost my glove somewhere near pooah Brooks’s tomb in the hollow. Won’t you go and fetch it, and come back here to take me home? The co’nnle has got to go and see his sick niggers in the hospital.” Champney lifted his hat, nodded genially to Courtland, and disappeared below the cypresses on the slope. “Yo’ mustn’t be mad,” she said, turning in explanation to her companion, “but we have been here too long already, and it’s better that I should be seen coming home with him than yo’.”

“Then this sectional interference does not touch him?” said Courtland bitterly.

“No. He’s an Englishman; his father was a known friend of the Confederacy, and bought their cotton bonds.”

She stopped, gazing into Courtland’s face with a pretty vague impatience and a slight pouting of her lip.

“Co’nnle!”

“Miss Sally.”

“Yo’ say yo’ had known me for three years before yo’ saw me. Well, we met once before we ever spoke to each other!”

Courtland looked in her laughing eyes with admiring wonder. “When?” he asked.

“The first day yo’ came! Yo’ moved the ladder when I was on the cornice, and I walked all ever yo’ head. And, like a gentleman, yo’ never said a word about it. I reckon I stood on yo’ head for five minutes.”