I made so sure that I should hang in any case that it seemed foolish to
answer, and so I saved my breath. Withal he was the terror of our
Southland, this tyrant colonel gave me time to consider; and while he
waited, grim and silent, the candles on the table guttered and ran down,
and the dim light failed till I could no longer see the face of her I
loved framed in the archway of the stair.

I thought it hard that I had seen my last of her sweet face thus through
thickening shadows, as a dream might fade. Nevertheless, I would be glad
that I had seen her thus, since otherwise, I thought, I must have gone
without this last or any other sight of her.

It was while I was still straining my eyes for one more glimpse of her,
and while the court room silence deepened dense upon us like the
shadows, that Colonel Tarleton signed to those who guarded me. A hand
was laid upon my shoulder, but when I would have turned to go with them
a woman's cry cut sharp into the stillness. Then, before any one could
say a word or think a thought, my dauntless little lady stood beside me,
her eyes alight and all her glorious beauty heightened in a blaze of
generous emotion.

"For shame! Colonel Tarleton," she cried. "Do you come thus into my
father's house and take a wounded guest and hang him? You say he is a
spy, but that he can not be, for he has lain abed in this same house a
month or more. You shall not hang him!"

At this there was a mighty stir about the table, as you may guess; and
some would smile, and some would snuff the candles for a better sight of
her sweet face. And through it all, the while my heart went near to
bursting at this fresh proof of her most fearless loyalty, I ground my