"That's what I feared," said Hilary, though while he spoke she fiercely felt that she certainly would have betrayed him; not for horror of Ship Island but because now, _after this_, no Anna Callender nor all the world conspired should have him from her alive. He lifted his tool for silence, and fresh anger wrung her soul to see joy mount in his eyes as from somewhere below the old coachman sang: "When I hands in my checks, O, my ladies!" Yet she showed elation: "That means Anna and Victorine they have pazz' to the boat?" With merry nods and airy wavings of affirmation he sang back, rang back: "Mighty little I espec's, O, my ladies! But whaheveh--" Suddenly he darkened imperiously and motioned Flora away. "Now! now's your time! go! now! this instant go!" he exclaimed, and sang on: "--I is sent--" "Ah!" she cried, "they'll h-ask me about her!" "I don't believe it!" cried he, and sang again: "--dey mus' un-deh-stan'--" "Yes," she insisted, "--muz' undehstan', and they will surely h-ask me!" "Well, let them ask their heads off! Go! at once! before you're further implicated!" "And leave you to--?" "Oh, doggon _me_. The moment that boat's gun sounds--if only you're out o' the way--I'll make a try. Go! for Heaven's sake, go!" Instead, with an agony of fondness, she glided to him. Distress held him as fast and mute as at the flag presentation. But when she would have knelt he caught her elbows and held her up by force. "No," he moaned, "you shan't do that." She crimsoned and dropped her face between their contending arms while for pure anguish he impetuously added, "Maybe in God's eyes a woman has this right, I'm not big enough to know; but as _I'm made_ it can't be done. I'm a man, no more, no less!" Her eyes flashed into his: "You are Hilary Kincaid. I will stan'!" "No,"--he loosed his hold,--"I'm _only_ Hilary Kincaid and you'll go--in mercy to both of us--in simple good faith to every one we love--Oh, leave me!" He swung his head in torture: "I'd sooner be shot for a spy or a coward than be the imbecile this makes me." Then all at once he was fierce: "Go!" Almost below her breath she instantly replied, "I will not!" She stood at her full, beautiful height. "Together we go or together stay. List-en!--no-no, not for _that_." (Meaning the gun.) In open anger she crimsoned again: "'Twill shoot, all right, and Anna, _she'll_ go. Yes, she will _leave_ you. She can do that. And you, you can sen' her away!" He broke in with a laugh of superior knowledge and began to draw back, but she caught his jacket in both hands, still pouring forth,--"She _has_ leave you--to me! me to you! My God! Hilary Kincaid, could she do that if she love' you? She don't! She knows not how--and neither you! But you, ah, you shall learn. She, she never can!" Through his jacket her knuckles felt the bare knife. Her heart leapt.