It at night when no one would know who it was? a sight more good

he'd do helping with the spring plowing than in Texas."

Frank put an arm about her. Usually he was gingerly when he did

this, as if he anticipated being impatiently shaken off, but

tonight there was a far-off look in his eyes and his arm was firm

about her waist.

"There are things more important now than plowing, Sugar. And

scaring the darkies and teaching the Scallawags a lesson is one of

them. As long as there are fine boys like Tony left, I guess we

won't need to worry about the South too much. Come to bed."

"But, Frank--"

"If we just stand together and don't give an inch to the Yankees,

we'll win, some day. Don't you bother your pretty head about it,

Sugar. You let your men folks worry about it. Maybe it won't come

in our time, but surely it will come some day. The Yankees will

get tired of pestering us when they see they can't even dent us,

and then we'll have a decent world to live in and raise our

children in."

She thought of Wade and the secret she had carried silently for

some days. No, she didn't want her children raised in this welter

of hate and uncertainty, of bitterness and violence lurking just

below the surface, of poverty and grinding hardships and

insecurity. She never wanted children of hers to know what all

this was like. She wanted a secure and well-ordered world in which

she could look forward and know there was a safe future ahead for

them, a world where her children would know only softness and

warmth and good clothes and fine food.

Frank thought this could he accomplished by voting. Voting? What

did votes matter? Nice people in the South would never have the

vote again. There was only one thing in the world that was a

certain bulwark against any calamity which fate could bring, and

that was money. She thought feverishly that they must have money,

lots of it to keep them safe against disaster.

Abruptly, she told him she was going to have a baby.

For weeks after Tony's escape, Aunt Pitty's house was subjected to

repeated searches by parties of Yankee soldiers. They invaded the

house at all hours and without warning. They swarmed through the

rooms, asking questions, opening closets, prodding clothes hampers,

peering under beds. The military authorities had heard that Tony

had been advised to go to Miss Pitty's house, and they were certain

he was still hiding there or somewhere m the neighborhood.

As a result, Aunt Pitty was chronically in what Uncle Peter called

a "state," never knowing when her bedroom would be entered by an

officer and a squad of men. Neither Frank nor Scarlett had

mentioned Tony's brief visit, so the old lady could have revealed

nothing, even had she been so inclined. She was entirely honest in

her fluttery protestations that she had seen Tony Fontaine only

once in her life and that was at Christmas time in 1862.

"And," she would add breathlessly to the Yankee soldiers, in an

effort to be helpful, "he was quite intoxicated at the time."

Scarlett, sick and miserable in the early stage of pregnancy,

alternated between a passionate hatred of the bluecoats who invaded

her privacy, frequently carrying away any little knick-knack that

appealed to them, and an equally passionate fear that Tony might

prove the undoing of them all. The prisons were full of people who

had been arrested for much less reason. She knew that if one iota

of the truth were proved against them, not only she and Frank but

the innocent Pitty as well would go to jail.

For some time there had been an agitation in Washington to

confiscate all "Rebel property" to pay the United States' war debt

and this agitation had kept Scarlett in a state of anguished

apprehension. Now, in addition to this, Atlanta was full of wild

rumors about the confiscation of property of offenders against

military law, and Scarlett quaked lest she and Frank lose not only

their freedom but the house, the store and the mill. And even if

their property were not appropriated by the military, it would be

as good as lost if she and Frank went to jail, for who would look

after their business in their absence?

She hated Tony for bringing such trouble upon them. How could he

have done such a thing to friends? And how could Ashley have sent

Tony to them? Never again would she give aid to anyone if it meant

having the Yankees come down on her like a swarm of hornets. No,

she would bar the door against anyone needing help. Except, of

course, Ashley. For weeks after Tony's brief visit she woke from

uneasy dreams at any sound in the road outside, fearing it might be

Ashley trying to make his escape, fleeing to Texas because of the

aid he had given Tony. She did not know how matters stood with

him, for they did not dare write to Tara about Tony's midnight

visit. Their letters might be intercepted by the Yankees and bring

trouble upon the plantation as well. But, when weeks went by and

they heard no bad news, they knew that Ashley had somehow come

clear. And finally, the Yankees ceased annoying them.

But even this relief did not free Scarlett from the state of dread

which began when Tony came knocking at their door, a dread which

was worse than the quaking fear of the siege shells, worse even

than the terror of Sherman's men during the last days of the war.

It was as if Tony's appearance that wild rainy night had stripped

merciful blinders from her eyes and forced her to see the true

uncertainty of her life.

Looking about her in that cold spring of 1866, Scarlett realized

what was facing her and the whole South. She might plan and

scheme, she might work harder than her slaves had ever worked, she

might succeed in overcoming all of her hardships, she might through

dint of determination solve problems for which her earlier life had

provided no training at all. But for all her labor and sacrifice

and resourcefulness, her small beginnings purchased at so great a

cost might be snatched away from her at any minute. And should

this happen, she had no legal rights, no legal redress, except

those same drumhead courts of which Tony had spoken so bitterly,

those military courts with their arbitrary powers. Only the

negroes had rights or redress these days. The Yankees had the

South prostrate and they intended to keep it so. The South had

been tilted as by a giant malicious hand, and those who had once

ruled were now more helpless than their former slaves had ever

been.

Georgia was heavily garrisoned with troops and Atlanta had more

than its share. The commandants of the Yankee troops in the