"'It's young Marse, Miss Lindy,' the man said, 'Him'n Marse Philip Breck'nridge 'n' Marse Tom's ridin' down de branch right now. Close to hyer—dey'll be hyer in fo'-five minutes.'
"She nodded at him coolly. 'All right. Shut the door, Uncle Ebenezer,' said she, and he went out and shut it.
"And before I could say Jack Robinson she was dragging me into the next room, and pushing me out of a door at the back.
"'Go—hurry up—oh, go!' she begged. 'I won't let them take you.'
"Well, I didn't like to leave her suddenly like that, so I said, said I: 'What's the hurry? I want to tell you something.'
"'No,' she shot at me. 'You can't. Go—won't you, please go?' Then I picked up a little hand and hold it against my coat. I knew by now just how she would catch her breath when I did it."
At about this point the General forgot me. Such good comrades we were that my presence did not trouble him, but as for telling the story to me, that was past—he was living it over, to himself alone, with every nerve in action.
"'Look here,' said I, 'I don't believe a thing like this ever happened on the globe before, but this has. It's so—I love you, and I believe you love me, and I'm not going till you tell me so.'
"By that time she was in a fit. 'They'll be here in two minutes; they're Confederate officers. Oh, and you mustn't cross at Kelly's Ford—take the ford above it'—and she thumped me excitedly with the hand I held. I laughed, and she burst out again: 'They'll take you—oh, please go!'
"'Tell me, then,' said I, and she stopped half a second, and gasped again, and looked up in my eyes and said it. 'I love you,' said she. And she meant it.