"I want to talk to you; are you in bed?"
She drew the coverlet to her chin and called out:
"Come in, Steve!"
He came, tremendously excited, clutching the Herald in one hand.
"I've had enough of this rebel newspaper!" he said fiercely. "I don't want it in the house again, ever. Father says that the marine news makes it worth taking, but——"
"What on earth are you trying to say, Steve?"
"I'm trying to tell you that we're at war! War, Ailsa! Do you understand? Father and I've had a fight already——"
"What?"
"They're still firing on Sumter, I tell you, and if the fort doesn't hold out do you think I'm going to sit around the house like a pussy cat? Do you think I'm going to business every day as though nothing was happening to the country I'm living in? I tell you now—you and mother and father—that I'm not built that way——"
Ailsa rose in bed, snatched the paper from his grasp, and leaning on one arm gazed down at the flaring head-lines: