"A few months ago you did not question my motives," she said, reprovingly; then in a lower tone, "Your commander has never questioned, why should you? Your President has sent me messages of commendation for my independent work. One, received before I left Mobile, I should like you to see," and she rose from the chair. He put out his hand to stop her. "Not if it has connection with any plot or plan of work against the people on this side of the line; remember, I am on parole." "Oh, I shall respect your scruples," she said, lightly. "But you need have no dread of that sort. I would not keep by me anything dangerous; it is not compromising to the Marquise de Caron in any way." She halted at the door and added, "Will you wait?" "Yes, I will wait," he said; "but I can't approve, and I don't need the evidence of any one else in order to appreciate your value," he added, grimly; "but be careful, remember where you are." "I could not forget it if I tried, Captain Jack," she declared, with a peculiar smile, of which the meaning escaped him until long after. That ride from Loringwood in the morning, and the nervous expectancy after, had evidently tended to undermine her own self-confidence and usual power of resource, for when she returned to the room a few minutes later, and found Gertrude and her uncle there, she halted in absolute confusion--could not collect her thoughts quickly enough for the emergency, and glanced inquiringly towards Monroe, as one looks at a stranger, while he, after one look as she entered, continued some remark to Mr. Loring. For an instant Gertrude's eyes grew narrow as she glanced from one to the other; then she recovered her usual sweet manner, as she turned to Judithe: "Pardon me, I fancied you two had met. Madame Caron, permit me to present Captain Monroe, one of our recent acquisitions." Both bowed; neither spoke. Colonel McVeigh entered at that moment. He had changed the grey travelling suit in which he arrived, for the grey uniform of his regiment, and Judithe, however critical she tried to be, could not but acknowledge that he was magnificent; mentally she added, "Magnificent animal; but what of the soul, the soul?" There was no lack of soul in his eyes as he looked at her and crossed the room, as though drawn by an invisible chain, and noted, as a lover ever notes, that the dress she wore had in its soft, silvery folds, a suggestion of sentiment for the cause he championed. But when he murmured something of his appreciation, she dropped her eyes to the fan she held, and when she glanced slowly up it was in a manner outlawing the tete-a-tete. "I realize now, Colonel McVeigh, that you are really a part of the army," she remarked in the tone of one who makes the conversation general. "You were a very civilian-looking person this morning. I have, like your Southern ladies, acquired a taste for warlike trappings; the uniform is very handsome."