t is your country,
your flag, not me, that you must think of now."

She folded her arms and stood boldly erect.

Never before, in all his life, had he felt such a rebuke. He gave her a
straight, strong look in the eyes.

"You are right, Alice." he cried, and rushed from the house to the fort.

She held her rigid attitude for a little while after she heard him shut
the front gate of the yard so forcibly that it broke in pieces, then
she flung her arms wide, as if to clasp something, and ran to the door;
but Beverley was out of sight. She turned and dropped into a chair.
Jean came to her out of the next room. His queer little face was pale
and pinched; but his jaw was set with the expression of one who has
known danger and can meet it somehow.

"Are they going to scalp us?" he half whispered presently, with a
shuddering lift of his distorted shoulders.

Her face was buried in her hands and she did not answer. Childlike he
turned from one question to another inconsequently.

"Where did Papa Roussillon go to?" he next inquired. "Is he going to
fight?"

She shook her head.

"They'll tear down the fort, won't they?"

If she heard him she did not make any sign.

"They'll kill the Captain and Lieutenant and get the fine flag that you
set so high on the fort, won't they, Alice?"

She lifted her head and gave the cowering hunchback such a stare that
he shut his eyes and put up a hand, as if afraid of her. Then she
impulsively took his little misshapen form in her arms and hugged it
passionately. Her bright hair fell all over him, almost hiding him.
Madame Roussillon was lying on a bed in an adjoining room moaning
diligently, at intervals handling her rosary and repeating a prayer.
The whole town was silent outside.

"Why don't you go get the pretty flag down and hide it before they
come?" Jean murmured from within the silken meshes of Alice's hair.

In his small mind the gaudy banner was the most beautiful of all
things. Every day since it was set up he had gone to gaze at it as it
fluttered against the sky. The men had frequently said in his presence
that the enemy would take it down if they captured the fort.

Alice heard his inquisitive voice; but it seemed to come from far off;
his words were a part of the strange, wild swirl in her bosom.
Beverley's look, as he turned and left her, now shook every chord of
her being. He had gone to his death at her command. How strong and true
and brave he was! In her imag