Then the lantern-light flashed and went out; shadowy horsemen wheeled away east and west, trotting silently to posts across the sod.

Far away among the hills the Special Messenger was riding through the night, head bent, tight-lipped, her dark eyes wet with tears.

III

ABSOLUTION

Just before daylight the unshaven sentinels at headquarters halted her; a lank corporal arrived, swinging a lighted lantern, which threw a yellow radiance over horse and rider. Then she dismounted.

Mud smeared her riding jacket; boots and skirt were clotted with it; so was the single army spur. Her horse stretched a glossy, sweating neck and rolled wisely-suspicious eyes at the dazzling light. On the gray saddle cloth glimmered three gilt letters, C. S. A.

"What name, ma'am?" repeated the corporal, coming closer with lifted lantern, and passing an inquiring thumb over the ominous letters embroidered on the saddle cloth.

"No name," she said. "They will understand--inside there."

"That your hoss, ma'am?"

"It seems to be."

"Swap him with a Johnny?"

"No; took him from a Johnny."

"Shucks!" said the corporal, examining the gilt letters. Then, looking around at her:

"Wa'll, the ginrall, he's some busy."

"Please say that his messenger is here."

"Orders is formuel, ma'am. I dassent----"

She pronounced a word under her breath.

"Hey?"

She nodded.

"Tain't _her_?" demanded the corporal incredulously.

She nodded again. The corporal's lantern and jaw dropped in unison.

"Speak low," she said, smiling.

He leaned toward her; she drew nearer, inclining her pretty, disheveled head with its disordered braids curling into witchlocks on her shoulders.

"'Tain't _the_ Special Messenger, ma'am, is it?" he inquired hoarsely.

"The boys is tellin' how you was ketched down to----"

She made him a sign for silence as the officer of the guard came up--an ill-tempered, heavily-bandaged young man.

"What the ----" he began, but, seeing a woman's muddy skirt in the lantern light, checked his speech.

The corporal whispered in his ear; both stared. "I guess it's all right," said the officer. "Won't you come in? The general is asleep; he's got half an hour more, but I'll wake him if you say so."

"I can wait half an hour."

"Take her horse," said the officer briefly, then led the way up the steps of a white porch buried under trumpet vines in heavy bloom.

The door stood open, so did every window on the ground floor, for the July night was hot. A sentry stood inside the wide hall, resting on his rifle, sleeves rolled to his elbows, cap pushed back on his flushed young forehead.

There was a candle burning in the room on the right; an old artillery officer leaned over the center table, asleep, round, red face buried in his arms, sabre tucked snugly between his legs, like the tail of a sleeping dog; an aide-de-camp slept heavily on a mahogany sofa, jacket unbuttoned, showing the white, powerful muscles of his chest, all glistening with perspiration. Beside the open window sat a thin figure in the uniform of a signal officer, and at first when the Special Messenger looked at him she thought he also was asleep.

Then, as though her entrance had awakened him, he straightened up, passed one long hand over his face, looked at her through the candlelight, and rose with a grace too unconscious not to have been inherited.

The bandaged officer of the guard made a slovenly gesture, half salute, half indicative: "The Messenger," he announced, and, half turning on his heel as he left the room, "our signal officer, Captain West," in deference to a convention almost forgotten.

Captain West drew forward an armchair; the Special Messenger sank into its tufted depths and stripped the gauntlets from her sun-tanned hands--narrow hands, smooth as a child's, now wearily coiling up the lustrous braids which sagged to her shoulders under the felt riding hat. And all the while, from beneath level brows, her dark, distrait eyes were wandering from the signal officer to the sleeping major of artillery, to the aide snoring on the sofa, to the trumpet vines hanging motionless outside the open window. But all she really saw was Captain West.

He appeared somewhat young and thin, his blond hair and mustache were burned hay-color. He was adjusting eyeglasses to a narrow, well-cut nose; under a scanty mustache his mouth had fallen into pleasant lines, the nearsighted eyes, now regarding her normally from behind the glasses, seemed clear, unusually pleasant, even a trifle mischievous.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" he asked respectfully.

"After the general is awake--if I might have the use of a room--and a little fresh water--" Speech died in her throat; some of the color died in her face, too.

"Did you wish me to awake him now? If your business is urgent I will,"

said Captain West.

She did not reply; an imperceptible twitching tightened her lips; then the young mouth relaxed, drooping a trifle at the corners. Lying there, so outwardly calm, her tired, faraway gaze fixed absently on him, she seemed on the verge of slumber.

"If your business is urgent," he was repeating pleasantly. But she made no answer.

Urgent? No, not now. It had been urgent a second or two ago. But not now. There was time--time to lie there looking at him, time to try to realize such things as triumph, accomplishment, the excitement of achievement; time to relax from the long, long strain and lie nerveless, without strength, yielding languidly to the reaction from a task well done.

So this was success? A pitiful curiosity made her eyes wistful for an instant. Success? It had not come as she expected.

Was her long quest over? Was this the finish? Had all ended here--here at headquarters, whither she had returned to take up, patiently, the lost trail once more?

Her dark gaze rested on this man dreamily; but her heart, after its first painful bound of astonishment, was beating now with heavy, sickened intelligence. The triumph had come too suddenly.

"Are you hungry?" he asked.

She was not hungry. There was a bucket of water and a soldier's tin cup on the window sill; and, forestalling him instinctively, she reached over, plunged the cup into the tepid depths and drank.

"I was going to offer you some," he said, amused; and over the brimming cup she smiled back, shuddering.