Their pleadings with Agatha had been earnest, insistent, and wholly fruitless. She had manifested no anger, and they had discovered no resentment in her voice as she replied to them. She had made no complaints and uttered no reproaches. To all their pleadings she had answered, simply: "I have quite decided upon my course. I shall not change my plans." The good dames were in such despair that they even welcomed Baillie's coming. "We have done everything, said everything," they hastily explained to him; "why, we have almost _apologised_ to the child, and all to no purpose. Perhaps you can have some influence, Captain Pegram. Will you not speak to her?" "I shall speak to her, of course," was his reply. "I am here indeed for that express purpose. But I shall certainly not try to dissuade her from any course that she may desire to pursue. That would be an impertinence of which I am incapable." The Oaks ladies flushed as he spoke the word "impertinence," remembering their own recent use of the term in connection with his conduct. Perhaps Agatha had told him of that in her letter, they thought. If so it would be most embarrassing for them to dine in his company and hers. So, pleading their great agitation of mind as their excuse, they returned at once to The Oaks, leaving Baillie and Agatha as the only guests of the Misses Blair at dinner. When left alone with the young woman after dinner, the master of Warlock opened the conversation as promptly as it was his custom to open fire when the proper moment had come. "Agatha," he began, as the two stood in the piazza in the glow of the early setting sun and in the midst of the blood-red Virginia creepers that embowered the place, "Agatha, do you remember the words I spoke to you on the picket-line at Fairfax Court-house?" Then without waiting for her reply, he continued: "I have come to you now to say those words over again, at a more fitting time and in a more appropriate place. I love you. I have loved you ever since those days in Richmond, those precious days when I first began to know you for what you are. I loved you all through that cruel time when, in obedience to what you believed was your duty, you decreed that there should be 'war between me and thee.' And now after all that you have done and dared for me, my love for a nature so pure, so noble, so heroic, passes understanding. I have a right to tell you this now. Tell me in return, if it displeases you?" With that absolute truthfulness which was the basis of her nature, Agatha replied as frankly as he had spoken. "It pleases me," she said. "I had not expected this. I thought I had repulsed you so rudely that--oh! Baillie, you will never know." In a torrent of tears that were a more welcome answer than any words could have been, she buried her face in her hands. Half an hour later these two sat by a crackling fire, arranging practical affairs.