ounded.

It was a small house, but it was well built and evidently had been
occupied by people of substance. It was painted white, except the
shutters which were green, and a brick walk led to a portico, with fine
and lofty columns. There was nobody outside, but as the shutters were
open it was probable that someone was inside.

Dick disliked to force an entrance at such a place, but he had been sent
out to protect the flank and he could not let a rifleman lie hidden there,
merely to resume his deadly business as soon as they passed on. They
pushed the gate open and rode upon the lawn, an act of vandalism that
he regretted, but could not help. They reached the door without any
apparent notice being taken of them, and as the detachments were
approaching from the other sides, Dick dismounted and knocked loudly.
Receiving no answer, he bade all the others dismount.

"Curley, you hold the horses," he said, "and Dixon, you tell the men
in the other detachments to seize anybody trying to escape. Sergeant,
you and I and the others will enter the house. Break in the lock with
the butt of your rifle, sergeant! No, I see it's not locked!"

He turned the bolt, and, the door swinging in, they passed into an empty
hall. Here they paused and listened, which was a wise thing for a man to
do when he entered the house of an enemy. Dick's sense of hearing was
not much inferior to that of the sergeant, and while at first they heard
nothing, they detected presently a faint click, click. He could not
imagine what made the odd sound, and, listening as hard as he could,
he could detect no other with it.

He pushed open a door that led into the hall and he and his men entered
a large room with windows on the side, opening upon a rose garden. It
was a pleasant room with a high ceiling, and old-fashioned, dignified
furniture. A blaze of sunlight poured in from the windows, and, where a
sash was raised, came the faint, thrilling perfume of roses, a perfume
to which Dick was peculiarly susceptible. Yet, for years afterward, the
odor of roses brought back to him that house and that room.

He thought at first that the room, although the faint clicking noise
continued, contained no human being. But presently he saw sitting at a
table by the open window a woman whose gray dress and gray hair blended
so nearly with the gray colors of the chamber that even a soldier could
have been excused for not seeing her at once. Her head and bod