carefully to draw her handsome cloak over her
shoulders. "Yo' want to know who I am, Mrs. Bunker," she said, arranging
the velvet collar under her white oval chin. "Well, I'm a So'th'n woman
from Figinya, and I'm Figinyan first, last, and all the time." She shook
out her sleeves and the folds of her cloak. "I believe in State rights
and slavery--if you know what that means. I hate the North, I hate the
East, I hate the West. I hate this nigger Government, I'd kill that man
Lincoln quicker than lightning!" She began to draw down the fingers of
her gloves, holding her shapely hands upright before her. "I'm hard and
fast to the Cause. I gave up house and niggers for it." She began to
button her gloves at the wrist with some difficulty, tightly setting
together her beautiful lips as she did so. "I gave up my husband for
it, and I went to the man who loved it better and had risked more for it
than ever he had. Cunnle Marion's my friend. I'm Mrs. Fairfax,
Josephine Hardee that was; HIS disciple and follower. Well, maybe those
puritanical No'th'n folks might give it another name!"

She moved slowly towards the door, but on the threshold paused, as
Colonel Marion had, and came back to Mrs. Bunker with an outstretched
hand. "I don't see that yo' and me need quo'll. I didn't come here for
that. I came here to see yo'r husband, and seeing YO' I thought it was
only right to talk squarely to yo', as yo' understand I WOULDN'T talk to
yo'r husband. Mrs. Bunker, I want yo'r husband to take me away--I want
him to take me to the cunnle. If I tried to go in any other way I'd
be watched, spied upon and followed, and only lead those hounds on his
track. I don't expect yo' to ASK yo' husband for me, but only not to
interfere when I do."

There was a touch of unexpected weakness in her voice and a look of pain
in her eyes which was not unlike what Mrs. Bunker had seen and pitied in
Marion. But they were the eyes of a woman who had humbled her, and Mrs.
Bunker would have been unworthy her sex if she had not felt a cruel
enjoyment in it. Yet the dominance of the stranger was still so strong
that she did not dare to refuse the proffered hand. She, however,
slipped the ring from her finger and laid it in Mrs. Fairfax's palm.

"You can take that with you," she said, with a desperate attempt to
imitate the other's previous indifference. "I shouldn't like to deprive
you and YOUR FRIEND of the opportunity of making use of it again. As for
MY husba