"Do you live here all alone?"

"Reckon I'm alone when I live heah," sullenly.

"What is your name?" He had a trick of coloring easily.

"What may be _yoh_ name, suh?" she retorted with a little flash of Southern spirit, never entirely quenched even in such as she seemed to be.

Genuine surprise brought the red back into his face and made it, worn as it was, seem almost handsome. The curious idea came to her that she had seen him before somewhere. At the same moment speech seemed to tremble on his lips; he hesitated, looked at her with a new and sudden keenness, and stood looking.

"I expected to meet somebody here," he said at length.

She did not seem to comprehend.

"I expected to meet a woman here."

"Who? Me?" incredulously.

He looked her over carefully; looked at her dusty bare ankles, at her walnut-smeared face and throat. She seemed so small, so round-shouldered--so different from what he had expected. They had said that the woman he must find was pretty.

"Was yuh-all fixin' to meet up with _me_?" she repeated with a bold laugh.

"I--don't know," he said. "By the Eternal, I don't know, ma'am. But I'm going to find out in right smart time. Did you ever hear anybody speak Latin?"

"Suh?" blankly; and the audacity faded.

"Latin," he repeated, a trifle discomfited. "For instance, '_sic itur_.'

Do you know what '_sic itur_' means?"

"Sick--what, suh?"

"'_Sic itur!_' Oh, Lord, she _is_ what she looks like!" he exclaimed in frank despair. He walked to the door, wheeled suddenly, came back and confronted her.

"Either, ma'am, you are the most consummate actress in this war drama, or you don't know what I'm saying, and you think me crazy.... And now I'll ask you once for all: _Is this the road_?"

The Special Messenger looked him full in the eyes; then, as by magic, the loveliest of smiles transfigured the dull, blank features; her round shoulders, pendulous arms, slouching pose, melted into superb symmetry, quickening with grace and youth as she straightened up and faced him, erect, supple, laughing, adorable.

"_Sic itur--ad Astra_," she said demurely, and offered him her hand.

"Continue," she added.

He neither stirred nor spoke; a deep flush mounted to the roots of his short, curly hair. She smiled encouragement, thinking him young and embarrassed, and a trifle chagrined.

"Continue the Latin formula," she nodded, laughing; "what follows, if you please----"

"Good God!" he broke out hoarsely.

And suddenly she knew there was nothing to follow except death--his or hers--realized she made an awful mistake--divined in one dreadful instant the unsuspected counter-mine beneath her very feet--cried out as she struck him full in the face with clenched fist, sprang back, whipping the revolver from her ragged bodice, dark eyes ablaze.

"Now," she panted, "hands high--and turn your back! Quickly!"

He stood still, very pale, one sunburned hand covering the cheek which she had struck. There was blood on it. He heard her breathless voice, warning him to obey, but he only took his hand from his face, looked at the blood on palm and finger, then turned his hopeless eyes on her.

"Too late," he said heavily. "But--I'd rather be you than I.... Look out of that window, Messenger!"

"Put up your hands!"

"No."

"Will you hold up your hands!"

"No, Messenger.... And I--didn't--know it was _you_ when I came here.

It's--it's a dirty business--for an officer." He sank down on the wooden chair, resting his head between both hands. A single drop of blood fell brightly from his cut cheek.

The Special Messenger stole a swift, sidelong glance toward the window, hesitated, and, always watching him, slid along the wall toward the door, menacing him at every step with leveled revolver. Then, at the door, she cast one rapid glance at the open field behind her and around.

A thrill of horror stiffened her. The entire circle of the burned clearing was ringed with the gray pickets of rebel cavalry.

The distant men sat motionless on their horses, carbine on thigh. Here and there a distant horse tossed his beautiful head, or perhaps some hat-brim fluttered. There was no other movement, not one sound.

Crouching to pass the windows beneath the sills she crept, heedless of her prisoner, to the rear door. That avenue to the near clustering woods was closed, too; she saw the glitter of carbines above the laurel.

"Special Messenger?" She turned toward him, pale as a ghost. "I reckon we've got you."

"Yes," she said.

There was another chair by the table--the only other one. She seated herself, shaking all over, laid her revolver on the table, stared at the weapon, pushed it from her with a nervous shudder, and, ashy of lip and cheek, looked at the man she had struck.

"Will they--hang me?"

"I reckon, ma'am. They hung the other one--the man you took me for."

"Will there be a--trial?"

"Drumhead.... They've been after you a long, long while."

"Then--what are you waiting for?"

He was silent.

She found it hard to control the nervous tremor of her limbs and lips.

The dryness in her throat made speech difficult.

"Then--if there is no chance----"

He bent forward swiftly and snatched her revolver from the table as her small hand fell heavily upon the spot where the weapon had rested.

"Would you do _that_?" he said in a low voice.

The desperate young eyes answered him. And, after a throbbing silence: "Won't you let me?" she asked. "It is indecent to h-hang a--woman--before--men----"

He did not answer.