"My dear Mrs. Hunter," replied the captain, urbanely, "the more the partition wall is broken down in one sense, the better. Isn't it wiser for me to get money out of Mr. Houghton than to sulk and starve? I _had_ to break through the wall to get bread. Of course," he added quietly, "we all understand one another. My military figures of speech must not be pressed too far. I do not propose to knock Mr. Houghton on the head, or even take the smallest possible advantage of him. On the contrary, because we are hostile, I shall be over-scrupulous, if possible, to do his work well. From him, as I told him, I expect not the slightest allowance, consideration, or kindness." "Oh," thought Mara, "how clearly he has put my own thought and wish. Why could not Owen Clancy have earned his own bread and mine by taking the course of this brave Southern man? I have been shown to-night how noble, how dignified and how easy it was. Why should he talk of love when he will not see what is so reasonable in the action of another?" "Cousin Hugh, you said one thing which needs explanation. You said you had a respect for this man floughton, who we all know has not a particle of good-will toward us." "Chiefly because he is such an honest enemy," Bodine replied. "He makes hard bargains with our people when he can, but have you ever heard of his cheating or doing anything underhand? I learned a good deal about his business character while in Georgia, and his course to-day corresponded with what I had been told. Moreover, his feelings got the better of him, and he revealed in one passionate sentence that his eldest son was killed, and, as he says, lies at the bottom of our harbor here. This fact enabled me to stand better what I had to take from him," and in answer to his cousin's questions he revealed the substance of the interview. "I do this," he concluded, "that you and other friends may better understand my course. To-morrow Mr. Houghton becomes my employer, and I shall owe a certain kind of loyalty. The more seldom we mention his name thereafter, the better; and I shall never speak of him except in terms of cold respect."