Great news the aide-de-camp brought us; from Lee, from Longstreet, Bragg and Johnston. Johnston was about to fall upon Grant\'s rear. Across the Mississippi Dick Taylor was expected this very day to deal the same adversary a crippling blow, and it was partly to mask this movement that we had made our feint upon the Federals near Natchez. Now these had fallen back, and our force had cunningly slipped away southward. Only General Austin and his staff had not gone when Lieutenant Helm left the front, and they were about to go.

Toward the end of the meal Mrs. Sessions, in her amiable plantation drawl, said she hoped the bearer of so much good tidings had not come to take away Lieutenant Ferry; and when Harry, flushing, asked what had given her such a thought, the simple soul replied that Mr. Gholson had told her he "suspicioned as much."

At once there arose the prettiest clamor all round the board, in which Charlotte and Cécile joined for the obvious purpose of making confusion. Gholson turned yellow and spoke things nobody heard, and Ferry tried to drown Harry\'s loud declarations that the word he had brought to Ferry was for him to stay, and that he had found him saddling up to go in search of his company. "Isn\'t that so, Ned?--Now,--now,--isn\'t that so?"

We left the table all laughing but Gholson. He tried to say something to Harry, which the latter waved away with mock gaiety until on the side veranda we got beyond view of the ladies, when the aide-de-camp reddened angrily and turned his back. As the two lieutenants were lighting cigarettes together, Harry, thinking Gholson had left us, blurted out, "Oh, that\'s all very well for you to say, Ned, but, damn him, he\'s not the sort of man that has the right to \'suspicion\' me of anything; slang-whanging, backbiting sneak, I know what he\'s here for."

On that the blood surged to Ferry\'s brow, but he set his mouth firmly, locked arms with the speaker and led him down the veranda. Gholson took on an uglier pallor than before and went back into the house. I followed him. He moved slowly up the two flights of hall stairs and into a room close under the roof, called the "soldiers\' room". It had three double beds, one of them ours. Without a fault in the dreary rhythm of his motions he went to the bedpost where hung his revolver, and turning to me buckled the weapon at his waist with hands that kept the same unbroken measure though they trembled and were as pallid as his face. In the same slow beat he shook his head.

"Smith, I rejoice! O--oh! I rejoice and am glad when I\'m reviled and persecuted by the hounds of hell, and spoken evil against falsely for my religion\'s sake."

"Now, Gholson, that\'s nonsense!"

"O--oh! that\'s what it\'s for! that\'s what he meant by \'slang-whanging.\' That\'s what it\'s for from first to last, no matter what it\'s for in between; and I know what it\'s for in between, too, and Ned Ferry knows. Did you see Ned Ferry take him under his protection? O--oh! they\'re two of one hell-scorched kind!" My companion stood gripping the bedpost and fumbling at his holster. I sank to the bed, facing him, expecting his rage to burn itself out in words, but when he began again his teeth were clenched. "You heard him tell Ned Ferry he knows why I\'m here. It\'s true! he does know! he knows I\'m here to protect a certain person from him and--"

"From whom? from Harry Helm? Oh, Gholson, that\'s too fantastical!"

"From him and the likes of him! Not that he loves her; that\'s the difference between them two cotton-mouth moccasins; Ned Ferry, hell grind him! does--or thinks he does; that other whelp don\'t, and knows he don\'t; he\'s only enam\'--"

"HUSH!" He ceased. "I swear, Scott Gholson, you must choose your words better when you allude--Lieutenant Helm is the last man in the brigade to be under my protection, but--oh, you\'re crazy, man, and blind besides. Harry Helm is not in love, but he thinks he is, though with quite another person!"

"O--oh! whether he loves or not, or whoever he loves, I know who he hates; he hates me and my religion; our religion, Smith, mine and yours; because it\'s put me between him and her. What was that the preacher said this morning? \'The carnal mind, being enmity against God, is enmity against them that serve God.\' O--oh, I accept his enmity! it proves my religion isn\'t vain! I\'m glad to get it!"

All this from his oscillating head, through his set teeth, in one malign monotone. As he quoted the preacher he mechanically drew his revolver. There was no bravado in this; he might lie, but he did not know how to sham; did not know, now, that his face was drawn with pain. Holding the weapon in one hand, under his absent gaze he turned it from side to side on the palm of the other. I put out my hand for it, but he dropped it into the holster and tried to return my smile.

"Do you propose to call him out?" I asked. "You can\'t call out an officer; you\'ll be sent to the water-batteries at Mobile."

"I\'ve thought of all that," he droned.

"Then why do you put that thing on?"

"Why do I put it on? Why, I--you know what I told you about that Yankee--"

"Gholson," I exclaimed, for I saw that murder, even double murder, was hatching in his heart, with Charlotte Oliver for its cause, and looked hard into his evil eyes until they overmatched mine; whereupon I made as if suddenly convinced. "You\'re right!" I turned, whipped on my own belt with its two "persuaders," and blandly smoothing my ribs, added "Now! here are two ready, Yankees or no Yankees."

I never saw a face so unconsciously marked with misery as Gholson\'s was when we started downstairs. I stopped him on a landing. "Understand, you and I are friends,--hmm? I think Lieutenant Helm owes you an apology, and if you\'ll keep away from him I\'ll try to bring it to you."

............