"What else could I do, all alone in the hall? How was I to know that he was one of the family?" "What happened next?" "Well, I saw that I had shut the lapel of his coat in the door-jamb, and that the man couldn't go away if he wanted to ever so much. Wasn't it dreadful? Of course I didn't dare to open the door, and there he was! He began pounding on the panels and ringing the bell in a manner to curdle one's blood. He rang the bell at least a hundred times in succession. I stood there with my hand on the bolt, not daring to move or breathe. I called to Mary to put on her things, steal out the lower way, and bring the police. Suddenly everything was still outside, and presently I saw a piece of paper slowly slipping in over the threshold, oh, so slyly! I felt my hands and feet grow cold. I felt that the man himself was about to follow that narrow strip of paper; that he was bound to get in that way, or through the keyhole, or somehow. Then I recognized your handwriting. My first thought was that you had been killed in some horrible accident"-- "And had dropped you a line?" "I didn't reason about it, Wesley; I was paralyzed. I picked up the paper, and read it, and opened the door, and Mr. Flagg rushed in as if he had been shot out of something. 'Don't want any?' he shouted. 'But I do! I want some breakfast!' You should have heard him." "He stated a fact, at any rate. To be sure he might have stated it less vivaciously." I was beginning to be amused. "After that he was quieter, and tried to make himself agreeable, and we laughed a little together over my mistake--that is, HE laughed. Of course I got breakfast for him--and such a breakfast!" "He had been without anything to eat since yesterday." "I should have imagined," said Clara, "that he had eaten nothing since the war broke out." "Did he say anything in particular about himself?" I asked, with a recurrent touch of anxiety. "He wasn't particular what he said about himself. Without in the least seeing the horror of it, he positively boasted of having been in the rebel army." "Yes--a colonel." "That makes it all the worse," replied Clara. "But they had to have colonels, you know." "Is Mr. Flagg a Virginian, or a Mississippian, or a Georgian?" "No, my dear; he was born in the State of Maine; but he has lived so long in the South that he's quite one of them for the present. We must make allowances for him, Clara. Did he say anything else?" "Oh, yes." "What did he say?" "He said he'd come back to supper."