“His time will come by and by,” Arthur said, when Maude expressed anxiety for him. “I’ll land him safely at your Uncle Paul’s some night when you least expect it. My business now is with you and your Yankee captain.” Maude had asked that for the present nothing should be said with regard to their engagement. And so, though the Judge suspected that some definite arrangement had been made between his son and Maude, he did not know for certain, even when she stood before him attired for the journey. The Judge was sorry to part with Maude, and he was sorry to part with Tom. He liked him because he was a gentleman if he _was_ a Yankee, and because his father had sent _Seth_ back, (poor Seth, with his free papers in his coffin,) and because he had been kind to Maude’s father, and married Mary Williams, of the Charleston Williamses, and could smoke a cob-pipe, and enjoy it. These were the things which recommended Tom to the old man, who shook his hand warmly at parting, saying to him: “I hate Northern dogs mostly, but hanged if I don’t like you. May you get safely home, and if you do, my advice is to stay there, and tell the rest of ’em to do the same. They can’t whip us,—no, by George, they can’t, even if they have got some advantage. The papers say it was all a strategical trap, and we’d rather you’d have the places than not. You can’t take Richmond,—no, sir! We will die in the last ditch, every mother’s son of us; and what is left will set the town on fire, and let it go to thunder!” The old Judge was waxing very eloquent for a man who had one Union soldier recruiting in Hetty’s cabin, and was bidding good-bye to another; but consistency was no part of war politics, and he rambled on, until Arthur cut him short by saying they could wait no longer. With Arthur as a safeguard in case of an attack from Confederates, and Tom Carleton in case of an assault from the Unionists, Maude felt perfectly secure, and in quiet and safety she accomplished her journey, and was welcomed with open arms by Paul Haverill and Charlie. Arthur could only stop for a day among the hills. He might be ordered back to his regiment at any time, and if he got that _other chap_ through he must be bestir himself, he said; and so he bade good-bye to Maude, in whom he had implicit faith, and whose sober, quiet demeanor he tried to attribute to her sorrow at parting with him. “She does like me some, and by and by she will like me better,” he said, as he went his way, leaving her standing in the doorway of her uncle’s house, her face very pale, and her hands pressed closely together, as if forcing back some bitter thought or silent pain. Turning once ere the winding road hid her from view Arthur kissed his hand to her gayly, while with a wave of her handkerchief she re-entered the house, and neither guessed nor dreamed how or when they would meet again. CHAPTER XXXII. SUSPICION.