ter they should discuss with Adolphe, who would be here to aid
them when he, Kincaid, would be in far Virginia. The only other
imperative matter was that of the young schoolma'am's gold, which must
be left in bank. Awkward business, to have to ask for it in scrambling
haste at such a moment.

But on a starlit balcony with two such ladies as the Valcours, to do
one's errands, such errands, in scrambling haste proved not even a
military possibility. Their greeting inquiries had to be answered:

"Yes, Charlie was well. He would be along soon, with fresh messages from
division headquarters. The battery was at last--Pardon?... Yes, the
Callenders were well--he supposed! He had seen only Miss Anna, and her
only for so brief an instant--"

No, Madame Valcour had merely cleared her throat. "That climate is hard
on those throat'."

He had seen Miss Anna, he resumed, "for so brief an instant--on an
errand--that he had not made civil inquiry after the others, but had
left good-by for them about as a news-carrier wads and throws in the
morning paper!"

It was so pretty, the silvery way the questioning pair laughed to each
other--at his simile, if that was the genuine source of their
amusement--that he let himself laugh with them.

"But how?" they further asked. "He had left good-by? Good-day, yes! But
for what good-by when juz' returning?"

"Ah, because here to them, also, it must be good-by, and be as brief as
there! The battery--he had sent word to them at sunrise, but had just
learned that his messenger had missed them--the battery was at last
ordered"--etc.

"_Mon Dieu!_" gasped the old lady as if this was too cruelly sudden,
and, "Oh, my brother! Oh, Captain Kincaid!" beautifully sighed Flora,
from whom the grandmother had heard the news hours before.

Yet, "Of course _any_ time 'twould have to be sudden," they had
presently so recovered as to say, and Flora, for both, spoke on in
accents of loveliest renunciation. She easily got the promise she
craved, that no ill should come to Charlie which a commander's care
could avert.

The loss of their Mobile home, which also Madame had perfectly known
since morning, was broken to them with less infelicity, though they
would talk cheerily of the house as something which no evil ever would
or could befall, until suddenly the girl said, "Grandma, dearest, that
night air is not so pretty good for your rheum; we better pass inside,"
and the old lady, insistently unselfish, mov