“Thank you,” she said without a tremor. “Will I have any trouble in passing the Yankee lines?”
“Here is your passport. I had prepared it.”
As the Messenger bent over from the saddle to deliver the pass, somehow her hat, with its crossed gilt sabres, fell off. She caught it in one hand; a bright blush mantled throat and face.
The Southern woman looked up at the girl in the saddle, so dramatically revealed for what she was under the superb accusation of her hair.
“You?”
“Yes—God help us both!”
The silence was terrible.
“It scarcely surprises me,” murmured Miss Carryl with a steady smile. “I saw only your eyes before, but they seemed too beautiful for a boy’s.”
Then she bent her delicately-molded head and studied the passport. The Messenger, still blushing, drew her hat firmly over her forehead and fastened a loosened braid. Presently she took up her bridle.
“I will ask Colonel Gay’s protection for Waycross House,” she said in a low voice. “I am so dreadfully sorry that this has happened.”