“Or—do you think,” she suggested uncertainly, “that we had better eat something before we start?” “Let us eat it outside, then!” I replied. “I cannot breathe in this place.” “Yet you were ready enough to enter it!” she retorted. And then before I could answer, “I must see what they’ve left!” she exclaimed. “There must be something upstairs.” She went nimbly up the ladder, leaving me staring after her. I turned the horses round and secured them. Then, in a brown study, I went out and for the first time I passed round the building, and saw the wide river gliding by, and beyond it across the marshes the long low ridge that goes by the name of the High Hills of Santee. The sun was shining on the distant ridge, and on the water, and compared with the prospect from the other side of the mill the view was cheerful and even gay. I spread her cloak on a pile of lumber that littered the wharf, and then I went back to fetch her. She had found some corn-bread and molasses, and some cold cooked rice. Even with the help of whisky of which there was more than of anything else, it was a poor feast and she spread it in silence while I looked on—thinking and thinking. From here to Camden was so many hours, two or three or four. So long I should have her company. Then we should part. As I rode away I should look back and see her framed in a doorway; or I should stand myself and see her grow small as she receded, until she turned some corner and was gone. And I should know that this was the end. So many hours, two or three or four! And heavy on me all the time the knowledge that I should spoil them by my unhappy temper, or my dullness, or that strange feeling that benumbed my tongue and took from me the power of speech. She looked up. “It is quite ready,” she said. And then, lowering her tone to a whisper, “Let us remember the last time we ate,” she said reverently, “and be thankful.” “Amen,” I said. “I thank God for your sake.” “And I thank too,” she answered in a voice that shook a little, “all who helped me.” “Tom?” “Ah, dear brave Tom!” she cried, tears in her voice. We were eating by this time, and to lighten the talk, “I am not sure,” I said, “that General Marion approved of the manner in which you thanked him.” “Thanked Tom? Because I kissed his hand? I believe I did,” she added ingenuously. “Oh, it was a small thing! Surely it was a small thing to do for him who had risked his life for me!” Our eyes met. For a moment the red flamed in her cheeks but she met my look bravely. “I am not ashamed,” she said. “I would do the same again in the same case.”