"But you will come back," said Madame Delaunay. "You will come back very soon. Surely, they will not try to keep us from going our ways in peace."
A sudden thrill of passion and feeling had appeared in her voice.
"That no one can tell, Julie," said Colonel Talbot very gravely—it was the first time that Harry had ever heard him call her by her first name—"but it seems to me that I should tell what I think. A Union such as ours has been formed amid so much suffering and hardship, courage and danger, that it is not to be broken in a day. We may come back soon from Montgomery, Julie, but I see war, a great and terrible war, a war, by the side of which those we have had, will dwindle to mere skirmishes. I shut my eyes, but it makes no difference. I see it close at hand, just the same."
Madame Delaunay sighed.
"And you, Major St. Hilaire?" she said.
"There may be a great war, Madame Delaunay," he said, "I fear that Colonel Talbot is right, but we shall win it."
Colonel Talbot said nothing more, nor did Madame Delaunay. Presently she went back into the house. After a long silence the colonel said:
"If I were not sure that our friend Shepard had left Charleston long since, I should say that the figure now passing in the street is his."
A small lawn filled with shrubbery stretched before the house, but from the piazza they could see into the street. Harry, too, caught a glimpse of a passing figure, and like the colonel he was sure that it was Shepard.
"It is certainly he!" he exclaimed.