"Dearest," warily exclaimed the Creole beauty, with a sudden excess of her pretty accent, "I am in a situation perfectly dreadful!"

Anna drew her to a sofa, seeing pictures of her and Hilary together, and tortured with a belief in their exquisite fitness to be so. "Can I help you, dear?" she asked, though the question echoed mockingly within her.

"Ah, no, except with advice," said Flora, "only with advice!"

"Ho-o-oh! if I were worthy to advise you it wouldn't flatter me so to be asked."

"But I muz' ask. 'Tis only with you that I know my secret will be--to everybody--and forever--at the bed of the ocean. You can anyhow promise me that."

"Yes, I can anyhow promise you that."

"Then," said Flora, "let me speak whiles--" She dropped her face into her hands, lifted it again and stared into her listener's eyes so piteously that through Anna ran another cry--"He has not asked! No girl alive could look so if he had asked her!"

Flora seemed to nerve herself: "Anna, every dollar we had, every picayune we could raise, grandma and I, even on our Mobile house and our few best jewels, is--is--"

"Oh, what--what? Not lost? Not--not stolen?"

"Blown up! Blown up with that poor old man in the powder-mill!"

"Flora, Flora!" was all Anna, in the shame of her rebuked conjectures, could cry, and all she might have cried had she known the very truth: That every dollar, picayune, and other resource had disappeared gradually in the grist-mill of daily need and indulgence, and never one of them been near the powder-mill, the poor old man or any of his devices.

"His theories were so convincing," sighed Flora.

"And you felt so pitiful for him," prompted Anna.

"Grandma did; and I was so ambitious to do some great patriotic service--like yours, you Callenders, in giving those cannon--and--"

"Oh, but you went too far!"

"Ah, if we had only gone no farther!"

"You went farther? How could you?"

"Grandma did. You know, dear, how suddenly Captain Kincaid had to leave for Mobile--by night?"

"Yes," murmured Anna, with great emphasis in her private mind.

"Well, jus' at the las' he gave Charlie a small bag of gold, hundreds of dollars, for--for--me to keep for him till his return. Anna! I was offended."

"Oh, but surely he meant no--"

"Ah, my dear, did I ever give him the very least right to pick me out in that manner? No. Except in that one pretty way he has with all of us--and which you know so well--"

An uncourageous faint smile seemed the safest response.

"Yes," said Flora, "you know it. And I had never allowed myself--"

With eyes down the two girls sat silent. Then the further word came absently, "I refused to touch his money," and there was another stillness.

"Dear," slowly said Anna, "I don't believe it was his. It would not have been in gold. Some men of the battery were here last evening--You know the Abolition schoolmistress who was sent North that day?"

"Yes, I know, 'twas hers."

"Well, dear, if she could entrust it to him--"

"Ah! she had a sort of right, being, as the whole battery knows, in love with him"--the beauty swept a finger across her perfect brows--"up to there! For that I don't know is he to blame. If a girl has no more sense--"

"No," murmured Anna as the cruel shaft went through her. "What did Charlie do with the money?"

Flora tossed a despairing hand: "Gave it to grandma! And poor innocent grandma lent it to the old gentleman! 'Twas to do wonders for the powder and gun, and be return' in three days. But the next--"

"I see," sighed Anna, "I see!"

"Yes, next day 'twas Sunday, and whiles I was kneeling in the church the powder, the gun, the old man and the money--Oh, Anna, what shall I do?"

"My dear, I will tell you," began Anna, but the seeker of advice was not quite ready for it.

"We have a few paltry things, of course," she spoke on, "but barely would they pay half. They would neither save our honor, neither leave us anything for rent or bread! Our house, to be sure, is worth more than we have borrowed on it, but in the meantime--"

"In the meantime, dear, you shall--" But still Flora persisted:

"Any day, any hour, Captain Kincaid may return. Oh, if 'twere anybody in this worl' but him! For, Anna, I must take all the blame--all!" The face went again into the hands.

"My dear, you shall take none. You shall hand him every dollar, every picayune, on sight."

"Ah, how is that possible? Oh, no, no, no. Use your money? Never, never, never!"

"It is............