Curiously he looked at Tom, seeking for something on which to fasten a doubt, for he did not wish Maude to have a cause for gratitude to the Northern officer. But the longer he gazed the less he doubted. The face of the lame officer in the Virginia woods came up distinctly before him, and was too much like the face confronting him to admit of a mistake, especially after Maude repeated the substance of what she had heard from Captain Carleton. Arthur was convinced, and as Maude dropped Tom’s hand, he took it in his, and said: “It is very strange that my first prize, over whose capture I felt so proud, should fall again into my power. But this time you are safe, I reckon. I am older than I was three years ago, and not quite so thirsty for a Yankee’s blood. You did Maude’s father good service, it seems, and to prove that we _rebels_ can be grateful and generous even to our foes, I will take you under my protection as one of my party, when I escort Maude home to Tennessee, as I intend doing in a few days.” Maude’s face was white with passion as she listened to this patronizing speech, which had in it so much of assumed superiority over the man who smiled a very peculiar kind of smile, as he bowed his acknowledgment of Arthur’s kind attentions. Not a hint was there that Maude was head and front of the arrangement,—that for Tom’s sake she had pledged herself to one whose inferiority never struck her so painfully as now, when she saw him side by side with Captain Carleton. Arthur did not care to have Captain Carleton know how much he was indebted to Maude for his present pleasant quarters, and his prospect of a safe transfer to the hills of Tennessee. But Tom, though never suspecting the whole truth, did know that his gratitude for past and present kindness received from that Southern family was mainly due to Maude, whom he admired more and more, as the days wore on, and he learned to know her intimately. The shy reserve which since his convalescence she had manifested toward him, passed with the knowledge that he had stood by her dying father, and she treated him as a friend with whom she had been acquainted all her life long. Occasionally, as something in Tom’s manner made her think that but for Arthur she might perhaps in time bear that relation toward him, which Mary Williams had borne, she felt a fierce throb of pain and a sense of such utter desolation, that she involuntarily rebelled against the life before her. But Maude was a brave, sensible girl. She had chosen her lot, she reasoned, and she would abide by it, and make Arthur as happy as she could. He was fulfilling his part of the contract well, as was proven by the terror-stricken creature, whom he had found hiding on the plantation, and had brought to Hetty’s cabin, where he now lay so weak, that it was impossible to take him along on that journey to Tennessee.