A rebel? The daughter of a planter? I thought no more of such things. Here, where every morning I looked across the valley to the far-off mountains, where the endless spaces of the air smiled beneath my eyes, here, within touch of the primitive forest and the wide prairies, such distinctions lost their meaning. The busy life of the camp, the Norfolk Discipline—how often had I cursed it!—the jovial dinner, the ride, the foray, faded into a dream; and even the quarrel which had brought us—a mere handful of pigmies, over the boundless ocean to this land, seemed no longer of moment, but a mere trifle, the play of children quarreling in some squalid alley of a distant town. And whether in this, love opened my eyes or closed them, whether I now saw things by the light of truth or duped myself for a season, what matter? In a month from my coming I had waded in over shoes, over boots. For me the die was cast and I knew that I dreaded nothing so much as the day that should see my back turned on the Bluff. The old life had lost its savour and seemed, as I looked back, an impossible procession of dull routine and distasteful days. Doubtless had I been French I must have spoken. But there is in us a vast force of silence. Where the Frenchman is proud we, until a certain day comes, are ashamed of passion. And apart from the distance which she maintained between us, there was a dignity about Constantia as she moved in the midst of her household, and governed her slaves, that set all thought of love at defiance. I could not bring myself to believe that she regarded me as anything but an unlucky encumbrance, one of the evils of war. Indeed, as my arm improved and my strength returned, and I stood in less need of help or pity, I fancied that her intolerance of my presence grew and increased. She noted when the month that Marion had named came to an end. She showed trouble at his non-appearance, and fretted without disguise at the delay. At times she was ice to me. And then I, who would have given the world for a kind word from her lips, could have cursed her for her unconsciousness!