For an instant Brant thought that
she was seeking him in indignation at his order, but a second look at
her set face, eager eyes, and parted scarlet lips, showed him that she
had not even noticed him in the concentration of her purpose. She swept
by him into the hall, he heard the swish of her skirt and rapid feet on
the stairs,--she was gone. What had happened, or was this another of her
moods?
But he was called to himself by the apparition of a corporal standing
before him, with the mulatto woman,--the first capture under his order.
She was tall, well-formed, but unmistakably showing the negro type, even
in her small features. Her black eyes were excited, but unintelligent;
her manner dogged, but with the obstinacy of half-conscious stupidity.
Brant felt not only disappointed, but had a singular impression that she
was not the same woman that he had first seen. Yet there was the tall,
graceful figure, the dark profile, and the turbaned head that he had
once followed down the passage by his room.
Her story was as stupidly simple. She had known "Missy" from a chile!
She had just traipsed over to see her that afternoon; they were walking
together when the sojers stopped her. She had never been stopped before,
even by "the patter rollers.
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