ping time to her words.

And now from behind the hollow square came a mighty voice:

"C'est moi, Gaspard Roussillon; me voici, messieurs!"

There was a spirit in the air which caught from Alice a thrill of
romantic energy. The men in the ranks and the officers in front of them
felt a wave of irresistible sympathy sweep through their hearts. Her
picturesque beauty, her fine temper, the fitness of the incident to the
occasion, had an instantaneous power which moved all men alike.

"Raise her flag! Run up the young lady's flag!" some one shouted, and
then every voice seemed to echo the words. Clark was a young man of
noble type, in whose veins throbbed the warm chivalrous blood of the
cavaliers. A waft of the suddenly prevailing influence bore him also
quite off his feet. He turned to Beverley and said:

"Do it! It will have a great effect. It is a good idea; get the young
lady's flag and her permission to run it up."

Before he finished speaking, indeed at the first glance, he saw that
Beverley, like Hamilton, was white as a dead man; and at the same time
it came to his memory that his young friend had confided to him during
the awful march through the prairie wilderness, a love-story about this
very Alice Roussillon. In the worry and stress of the subsequent
struggle, he had forgotten the tender basis upon which Beverley had
rested his excuse for leaving Vincennes. Now, it all reappeared in
justification of what was going on. It touched the romantic core of his
southern nature.

"I say, Lieutenant Beverley," he repeated, "beg the young lady's
permission to use her flag upon this glorious occasion; or shall I do
it for you?"

There were no miracles in those brave days, and the strain of life with
its terrible realities braced all men and women to meet sudden
explosions of surprise, whether of good or bad effect, with admirable
equipoise; but Beverley's trial, it must be admitted, was
extraordinary; still he braced himself quickly and his whole expression
changed when Clark moved to go to Alice. For he realized now that it
was, indeed, Alice in flesh and blood, standing there, the center of
admiration, filling the air with her fine magnetism and crowning a
great triumph with her beauty. He gave her a glad, flashing smile, as
if he had just discovered her, and walked straight to her, his hands
extended. She was not looking toward him; but she saw him and turned to
face him. Hers was the advantage; for she had known