"Know what?" she almost gasped.
"That I'm a prisoner."
She sprung to her feet and was about to utter some passionate exclamation; but he said, hastily, "Oh, hush, or I'm lost. I believe that eyes are upon me all the time."
"Heigho!" she exclaimed, walking to the edge of the veranda, "I wish I knew what General Lee was doing. We are expecting to hear of another great battle every day;" and she swept the vicinity with a seemingly careless glance, detecting a dark outline behind some shrubbery not far away. Instantly she sprung down the steps and confronted the rebel sergeant.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, indignantly.
"My duty," was the stolid reply.
"Find duty elsewhere then," she said, haughtily.
The man slunk away, and she returned to Lane, who remarked, significantly, "Now you understand me."
It was evident that she was deeply excited, and immediately she began to speak in a voice that trembled with anger and other emotions. "This is terrible. I had not thought—indeed it cannot be. My father would not permit it. The laws of war would apply, I suppose, to your enlisted men, but that you and Surgeon McAllister, who have been our guests and have sat at our table, should be taken from our hospitality into captivity is monstrous. In permitting it, I seem to share in a mean, dishonorable thing."
"How characteristic your words and actions are!" said Lane, gently. "It would be easy to calculate your orbit. I fear you cannot help yourself. You forget, too, that I was the means of sending to prison even your Major Denham."