"You may not know that this road, in which I find you, takes you through a cordon of pickets.

If you were alone you would be stopped, questioned, and, failing to give the password, you would be detained, sent to the guard-house, and"-- he stopped, and fixed his eyes on her keenly as he added, "and searched." "You would not dare to search a woman!" she said indignantly, although her flush gave way to a slight pallor.
"You said just now that there should be no sex in a war like this," returned Brant carelessly, but without abating his scrutinizing gaze.
"Then it IS war ?" she said quickly, with a white, significant face.
His look of scrutiny turned to one of puzzled wonder.

But at the same moment there was the flash of a bayonet in the hedge, a voice called "Halt!" and a soldier stepped into the road.
General Brant advanced, met the salute of the picket with a few formal words, and then turned towards his fair companion, as another soldier and a sergeant joined the group.
"Miss Faulkner is new to the camp, took the wrong turning, and was unwittingly leaving the lines when I joined her." He fixed his eyes intently on her now colorless face, but she did not return his look.
"You will show her the shortest way to quarters," he continued, to the sergeant, "and should she at any time again lose her way, you will again conduct her home,--but without detaining or reporting her." He lifted his cap, remounted his horse, and rode away, as the young girl, with a proud, indifferent step, moved down the road with the sergeant.

A mounted officer passed him and saluted,--it was one of his own staff.

From some strange instinct, he knew that he had witnessed the scene, and from some equally strange intuition he was annoyed by it.