Yes, you may stare at me, Clarence Brant.
You are a good lawyer--they say a dashing fighter, too. I never thought
you a coward, even in your irresolution; but you are fighting with men
drilled in the art of war and strategy when you were a boy outcast on
the plains." She stopped, closed her eyes, and then added, wearily--"But
that was yesterday--to-day, who knows? All may be changed. The supports
may still attack you. That was why I stopped to write you that note an
hour ago, when I believed I should be leaving here for ever. Yes, I did
it!" she went on, with half-wearied, half-dogged determination. "You may
as well know all. I had arranged to fly. Your pickets were to be drawn
by friends of mine, who were waiting for me beyond your lines. Well, I
lingered here when I saw you arrive--lingered to write you that note.
And--I was too late!"
But Brant had been watching her varying expression, her kindling
eye, her strange masculine grasp of military knowledge, her soldierly
phraseology, all so new to her, that he scarcely heeded the feminine
ending of her speech. It seemed to him no longer the Diana of his
youthful fancy, but some Pallas Athene, who now looked up at him from
the pillow. He had never before fully believed in her unselfish devotion
to the cause until now, when it seemed to have almost unsexed her.
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