Bunker felt she would have given up her life at that moment.

"Colonel Marion seems to find plenty that he can bribe," she said
roughly, "and I've yet to know who YOU are to sit in judgment on them.
You've got your letter, take it and go! When he wants to send you
another through me, somebody else must come for it, not you. That's
all!"

She drew back as if to let the intruder pass, but the lady, without
moving a muscle, finished the reading of her letter, then stood
up quietly and began carefully to draw her handsome cloak over her
shoulders. "Yo' want to know who I am, Mrs. Bunker," she said, arranging
the velvet collar under her white oval chin. "Well, I'm a So'th'n woman
from Figinya, and I'm Figinyan first, last, and all the time." She shook
out her sleeves and the folds of her cloak. "I believe in State rights
and slavery--if you know what that means. I hate the North, I hate the
East, I hate the West. I hate this nigger Government, I'd kill that man
Lincoln quicker than lightning!" She began to draw down the fingers of
her gloves, holding her shapely hands upright before her. "I'm hard and
fast to the Cause. I gave up house and niggers for it." She began to
button her gloves at the wrist with some difficulty, tightly setting
together her beautiful lips as she did so. "I gave up my husband for
it, and I went to the man who loved it better and had risked more for it
than ever he had. Cunnle Marion's my friend. I'm Mrs. Fairfax,
Josephine Hardee that was; HIS disciple and follower. Well, maybe those
puritanical No'th'n folks might give it another name!"

She moved slowly towards the door, but on the threshold paused, as
Colonel Marion had, and came back to Mrs. Bunker with an outstretched
hand. "I don't see that yo' and me need quo'll. I didn't come here for