“No,” said the old general with a gentle smile. He was driving the barb deep, but sooner or later it had to be done.
“Look here!” He pulled an old piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to her. Her wide eyes fell upon a rude boyish scrawl and a rude drawing of a buffalo pierced by an arrow:
“It make me laugh. I have no use. I give hole dam plantashun Barbara.”
“Oh!” gasped the girl and then—“where is he?”
“Waiting at Williamsburg to get his discharge.” She rushed swiftly down the steps, calling:
“Ephraim! Ephraim!”
And ten minutes later the happy, grinning Ephraim, mounted on the thoroughbred, was speeding ahead of a whirlwind of dust with a little scented note in his battered slouch hat:
“You said you would come whenever I wanted you. I want you to come now.
“Barbara.”
The girl would not go to bed, and the old general from his window saw her like some white spirit of the night motionless on the porch. And there through the long hours she sat. Once she rose and started down the great path toward the sun-dial, moving slowly through the flowers and moonlight until she was opposite a giant magnolia. Where the shadow of it touched the light on the grass, she had last seen Grey’s white face and scarlet breast. With a shudder she turned back. The night whitened. A catbird started the morning chorus. The dawn came and with it Ephraim. The girl waited where she was. Ephraim took off his battered hat.