What this young girl had seen and suffered and resented amid a world of men I did not know.

Boyd's late gallantry, idle, and even ignoble as it had appeared to me, had poisoned her against me also, confirming apparently all she ever had known of men.
If this young, lonely, ragged thing were what her attitude and words made plain, she had long endured her beauty as a punishment.

What her business might be in lingering around barracks and soldiers' camps I could not guess; but women who haunted such resorts seldom complained of the rough gallantries offered.

And if their charms faded, they painted lip and cheek, and schooled the quivering mouth to smile again.
What her business might now be in following our little detail northward I could not surmise.

Here was no barracks wench! But wench or gypsy or what not, it was impossible that I should leave her here alone.