_Annie_. Why, Helen, I am sorry to have grieved you thus; but I thought--Look! look! There go those officers again,--there, in the lane between the orchards, Scarcely half an hour ago they went by to the fort in just such haste. There is something going on there, I am sure. (_Helen rises from the window, and walks the room_.) _Annie_. In truth there was a rumor this afternoon,--you are so timid and fanciful, our mother chose you should not hear it while it was rumor only; but 'tis said that a party of the enemy have been seen in those woods to-day, and, among them, the Indians we have counted so friendly. Do you hear me, Helen? _Helen_. That he should _live_ still! Yes, it is all real still! That heaven of my thought, that grows so like a pageant to me, is still _real_ somewhere. Those eyes--they are darkly shining now; this very moment that passes _me_, drinks their beauty;--that voice,--that tone,--that very tone--on some careless ear, even now it wastes its luxury of blessing. Continents of hail and darkness, the polar seas--all earth's distance, could never have parted me from him; but now I live in the same world with him, and the everlasting walls blacken between us. Those looks may shine on the dull earth and senseless stones, but not on me; on uncaring eyes, but not on mine; though for one moment of their lavished wealth, I could cheaply give a life without them; never again, never, never, never shall their love come to me. _Annie_. Who would have thought she could cherish in secret a grief like this? Dear sister, we all believed you had forgotten that sad affair long ago,--we thought that you were happy now. _Helen_. Happy?--I am, you were right; but I have been to-day down to the very glen where we took that last lovely walk together, and all the beautiful past came back to me like life.--I _am_ happy; you must count me so still. _Annie_. With what I have just now heard, how can I? _Helen_. It is this war that has parted us; and so, this is but my part in these noble and suffering times, and that great thought reaches overall my anguish. But for this war I might have been--hath this world such flowers, and do they call it a wilderness?--I might have been, even now, you know it, Annie, his wife, his wife, _his_. But our hearts are cunningly made, many-stringed; and often much good music is left in them when we count them broken. That which makes the bitterness of this lot, the inconceivable, unutterable bitterness of it, even that I can bear now, calmly, and count it God's kindness too. _Annie_. I do not understand you, sister. _Helen_. What if this young royalist, Annie, when he quarrelled with my brother, and took arms against my country, what if he had kept faith to _me?_ _Annie_. Well.