I saw then what he meant, for Miss Caroline had "shined" her eyes, and they flooded me with a distracting medley of lights. I thought she struggled very uncertainly with herself. Her eyes shifted from my face to the empty sleeve. Twice before that evening--I remembered it had been when she spoke so enigmatically of the lumber industry--her eyes had rested there briefly, discreetly, but in all sympathy. Now the look was different. It wavered. At one instant I seemed to read regret that I had come off so well--her eyes flickered suggestively to my remaining arm. "Be fair," I said; "did I not drink your toast?" I thought she wavered at this, for a blush deeper than all the others suffused her. "Besides," I continued warningly, "you are within the enemy's lines now, and you may find me a help. Come!" and I held out my hand. Very slowly she put her own within it. I noticed that it was still plump, the fine skin not yet withered. "You are very kind, Major Blake. I had been misinformed, or you should have had no occasion to think me rude." It was then that I wished definitely to shake Miss Caroline. "Come, come," I said, "you are not giving me what you gave at first. I'm not to be put off that way, you know. If I call you Miss Caroline,--and I've sworn to call you nothing else,--you must be Miss Caroline." She searched my face eagerly,--then-- "You _shall_ call me Miss Caroline--but remember, sir, it makes you my servant." She smiled again, without the icy reserve this time, whereat I was glad--but back of the smile I could see that she felt a bitter homesickness of the new place. "Your most obedient servant," I said. "You have another slave, Miss Caroline, another that refuses manumission--another bit of personal property, clumsy but willing." "Thank you, Major, I need your kindness more than I might seem to need it. Good night!" and even then she gave me a rose, with the same coquetry, I doubt not, that had once made Colonel Jere Lansdale quick to think of his pistols when another evoked it. Only now it masked her weariness, her sense of desperate desolation. I took the rose and kissed her hand. I left her wilting in the big chair, staring hard into the fireplace that Clem had rilled with summer green things. When my fellow-chattel appeared next morning with my coffee, he was embarrassed. With guile he strove to be talkative about matters of no consequence. But this availed him not. "Clem," I said frigidly, "tell me just what you said to Mrs. Lansdale about me." He paltered, shifting on his feet, his brow contracted in perplexity, as if I had propounded some intricate trifle of the higher mathematics. "Huh! Wha--what's that yo'-all is a-sayin', Mahstah Majah?" "Stop that, now! I needn't tell you twice what I said. Out with it!"