_Enter_ GERTRUDE, _on veranda._

GERTRUDE. General Haverill! [_Anxiously, coming down._] Colonel West
persists in disobeying the injunctions of the Surgeon. He is preparing
to join his regiment at the front. Give him your orders to remain
here. Compel him to be prudent!

HAVERILL. [_Quickly._] The honour of death at the front is not in
reserve for him.

GERTRUDE. Eh? What did you say, General?

HAVERILL. Gertrude! I wish to speak to you, as your father's old
friend; and I was once your guardian. Your father was my senior
officer in the Mexican War. Without his care I should have been left
dead in a foreign land. He, himself, afterwards fell fighting for the
old flag.

GERTRUDE. The old flag. [_Aside._] My father died for it, and
he--[_Looking left._]--is suffering for it--the old flag!

HAVERILL. I can now return the kindness your father did to me, by
protecting his daughter from something that may be worse than death.

GERTRUDE. What do you mean?

HAVERILL. Last night I saw you kneeling at the side of Kerchival West;
you spoke to him with all the tender passion of a Southern woman. You
said you loved him. But you spoke into ears that could not hear you.
Has he ever heard those words from your lips? Have you ever confessed