"I know that matters little to you--"
"Oh, but you're farther from fair than ever, Captain Kincaid; you got my word for one thing and have used it for another!" She turned and they tardily followed their friends, bound for the gangway. A torch-basket of pine-knots blazing under the bow covered flood and land with crimson light and inky shadows. The engines had stopped. The boat swept the shore. A single stage-plank lay thrust half out from her forward quarter. A sailor stood on its free end with a coil of small line. The crouching earthwork and its fierce guns glided toward them. Knots of idle cannoneers stood along its crest. A few came down to the water's edge, to whom Anna and Hilary, still paired alone, were a compelling sight. They lifted their smart red caps. Charlie ventured a query: "It's true, Captain, isn't it, that Virginia's out?"
"I've not seen her," was the solemn reply, and his comrades tittered.
"Yes!" called Constance and Miranda, "she's out!"
"Miss Anna," murmured Hilary with a meekness it would have avenged Charlie to hear, "I've only given you the right you claim for every woman."
"Oh, Captain Kincaid, I didn't say every woman! I took particular--I--I mean I--"
"If it's any one's right it's yours."
"I don't want it!--I mean--I mean--"
"You mean, do you not? that I've no right to say what can only distress you."
"Do you think you have?--Oh, Lieutenant, it's been a perfectly lovely trip! I don't know when the stars have seemed so bright!"