"There can surely be no war between me and thee," he answered, with earnestness in his tone. "At any rate, I do not make war upon a woman, and least of all--" "You must not misunderstand, Mr. Pegram," the girl broke in, looking at him earnestly out of her great brown eyes. "I esteem you highly, and I am sorry there is trouble between your house and mine. But I am not disloyal to the memory of my father. You must never think that. It is only that you are a gentleman who has been kind to me, and a soldier whom I honour. But the war endures between your house and mine." Had she slapped him in the face with her open palm, she could not have hurt his pride more deeply. He snatched his jacket from her hand. Only one sleeve was finished, and the needle still hung from it by a thread. "I'll wear it so," he said. "I, at any rate, have no house. I am the last of my race, and let me say to you now--for I shall never see you again of my own free will--that the war between our houses will completely end when I receive my discharge from life." Then a new thought struck him. "It is not for Baillie Pegram, the master of Warlock, that you have done this," touching the braided sleeve, "but for Baillie Pegram, the soldier on his way to battle. Let it be so." Stung by his own words, and controlled by an impulse akin to that which had seized him at the gun two days before, he reached out and plucked from her headgear the red feather that she wore there, saying: "Here! fasten that in my hat. I've a mind to wear it in battle to-morrow. Then I'll send it back to you." What demon of the perverse had prompted him to this action, he did not know, but the girl in her turn seemed subject to its will. Instead of resenting what he had done, she took the feather and with some quickly plied stitches fastened it securely to his already soiled and worn slouch hat. Then handing it back to him, she said: "Good-bye. God grant that when the feather comes back to me, it be not stained to a deeper red than now." At that moment the bugle blew. Baillie touched his hat, bowed low, and said: "At least you are a courteous enemy." "And a generous one?" she asked. But he did not answer the implied question. * * * * * When he had gone, Agatha bent low over her work-basket, as if in search of something that she could not find. If two little tear-drops slipped from between her eyelids, nobody caught sight of them. Presently another bugle blew, and as Baillie Pegram's battery took up the march, the guns and men of Captain Skinner took its place. But this time there was no mingling of the men with the spectators. Captain Skinner was too rigid a disciplinarian to permit that, and he knew his ruffians too well. The moment the battery halted, the sergeant of the guard posted his sentries, and the men remained within the battery lines.