, but where was there safety? At her back
the concealed listener waited keenly for the reply.

"Yes," said Hilary, "news the very best and hardly an hour old. Didn't
you hear the battery cheering? That's what I've come to tell you. Though
it's hard to tell, for I--"

"It's from Mobile, you say?"

"No, I can tell you the Mobile news first, but it's bad. Miss Flora's
home--"

Anna gave a start and with a hand half upthrown said quietly, "Don't
tell me. No, please, don't, I don't want to hear it. I can't explain,
but I--I--" Tears wet her lashes, and her hands strove with each other.
"I don't like bad news. You should have taken it straight to Flora. Oh,
I wish you'd do that now, won't you--please?"

Behind the screen the hidden one stiffened where she crouched with
fierce brow and fixed eyes.

Kincaid spoke: "Would you have me pass you by with my good news to go
first to her with the bad?"

"Oh, Captain Kincaid, yes, yes! Do it yet. Go, do it now. And tell her
the good news too!"

"Tell her the good first and then stab her with the bad?"

"Oh, tell her the bad first. Do her that honor. She has earned it.
She'll bear the worst like the heroine she is--the heroine and patriot.
She's bearing it so now!"

"What! she knows already?"

In her hiding Flora's intent face faintly smiled a malevolence that
would have startled even the grandam who still killed time out among the
roses with her juniors.

"Yes," replied Anna, "she knows already."

"Knows! Miss Anna--that her home is in ashes?"

Anna gave a wilder start: "Oh, no-o-oh! Oh, yes--oh, no--oh, yes, yes!
Oh, Captain Kincaid, how could you? Oh, monstrous, monstrous!" She made
all possible commotion to hide any sound that might betray Flora, who
had sprung to her feet, panting.

"But, but, Miss Anna!" protested Hilary. "Why, Miss Anna--"

"Oh, Captain Kincaid, how could you?"

"Why, you don't for a moment imagine--?"

"Oh, it's done, it's done! Go, tell her. Go at once, Captain Kincaid.
Please go at once, won't you?... Please!"

He had risen amazed. Whence such sudden horror, in this fair girl, of a
thing known by her already before he came? And what was this beside?
Horror in the voice yet love beaming from the eyes? He was torn with
perplexity. "I'll go, of course," he said as if in a dream. "Of course
I'll go at once, but--why--if Miss Flora already--?" Then suddenly he
recovered himself in the way Anna knew so well. "Miss Anna"--he
gestured with hi