Alberta was awfully changed, and Erminie shuddered as she gazed on her. Her dress was all black, but rusty and travel-stained. Her face and form were still beautiful, but the “glory” of their beauty was “obscured.” Her once oval face was lengthened and hollowed, her perfect features pinched and sharpened; her fair complexion sun-burned, her brilliant hair faded, her graceful form emaciated. Her whole aspect spoke of the hardships and exposures of the hunted and battling life she led by the side of the guerrilla chief. Yet one saw, in contemplating this change, that it was, at worst, beauty impaired and not destroyed, and that a few months of quiet happiness might restore it in all its pristine splendor. “Oh, how much you seem to want repose! Stay with me and rest, oh, poor, storm-beaten friend!” murmured Erminie, gently caressing her visitor. “I knew that you were humane and tender-hearted, Erminie, and I felt encouraged to come to you—to you of all the world—in the hour of my distress.” “And you have not trusted in vain. I will do everything in my power to serve you, Alberta. Everything, I mean, not incompatible with the service of our country, and of course you would not wish me to compromise my duty to her, for you have taken the oath of allegiance.” “Yes, I have taken the oath of allegiance. I should not have been here else,” replied Alberta, in a tone that grated unpleasantly upon the nerves of her hostess. “Then it was a compulsory oath,” put in Elfie, very dryly. “It was a compulsory oath in so far as this: that I should not have been allowed to cross your lines without having first taken it.” “‘Your lines?’ Why do you not say _our_ lines, since you have taken the oath, and are one of us?” inquired Elfie. “I spoke from the force of habit, that is all,” answered Alberta. “Do you mean to keep your oath?” inquired Elfie. “Most assuredly I do. Why?” “Because you needn’t, you know, if you don’t like to—that is all. It is a compulsory oath by your own showing, and compulsory oaths are neither morally nor legally binding; at least they are not held to be so by persons of your way of thinking, Alberta.” “I hold myself bound by my oath; but it seems that you are mocking me, Elfrida. And whether you yourself are loyal or otherwise, you are no true daughter of the South to mock at a fallen sister,” said Alberta. “You are down, I see, but blest if I know whether you have ‘fallen’ down, or whether you have _crouched_ down for a fatal spring! By the gleam of your eyes, Alberta, I should say the latter.” “Elfie! Elfie! your words are cruelly unjust, I do believe. Remember ‘Who by repentance is not satisfied, Is nor of heaven nor earth,’” said Erminie, gravely. “I’ll say no more, except this: If you are in the possession of any state secrets that it would profit the Confederacy to know, do not communicate them to Alberta.”