ad she been an actress. Her cheeks were
aflame, her eyes full of fire and spirit, her bosom heaving, her little
foot tapping the ground, as she stood there leaning on the colonel's
fence and looking straight up in the perturbed veteran's face. She was
magnificent, he said to himself; and, in her bravery, self-sacrifice,
and indignation, she _was_.) "It was then after two, and I could just as
well go with him,--somebody had to bring the buggy back,--and Graves
himself hitched in his roan mare for me, and I drove out, picked up Mr.
Jerrold at the corner, and we came out here again through the darkness
together. Even when we got to the Point I did not let him go at once. It
was over an hour's drive. It was fully half-past three before we parted.
He sprang down the path to reach the river-side; and before he was
fairly in his boat and pulling up against the stream, I heard, far over
here somewhere, those two faint shots. That was the shooting he spoke of
in his letter to me,--not to her; and what business Colonel Maynard had
to read and exhibit to his officers a letter never intended for him I
cannot understand. Mr. Jerrold says it was not what he wanted it to be
at all, as he wrote hastily, so he wrote another, and sent that to me by
Merrick that morning after his absence was discovered. It probably blew
out of the window, as these other things did this morning. See for
yourself, captain." And she pointed to the two or three bills and scraps
that had evidently only recently fluttered in among the now neglected
roses. "Then when he was aroused at reveille and you threatened him with
punishment and held over his head the startling accusation that you knew
of our meeting and our secret, he was naturally infinitely distressed,
and could only write to warn me, and he managed to get in and say
good-by to me at the station. As for me, I was back home by five
o'clock, let myself noiselessly up to my room, and no one knew it but
the Suttons and old Graves, neither of whom would betray me. I had no
fear of the long dark road: I had ridden and driven as a child all over
these bluffs and prairies before there was any town worth mentioning,
and in days when my father and I found only friends--not enemies--here
at Sibley."

"Miss Beaubien, let me protest against your accusation. It is not for
me to reprove your grave imprudence or recklessness; nor have I the
right to disapprove your choice of Mr. Jerrold. Let me say at once that
you ha