ing with an uneasy weight upon his mind--the
thought of the prisoner whom he had taken the night before. He was
unable to imagine how a woman of her manner and presence had ever
ventured upon such an enterprise, and he contrasted her--with poor
results for the unknown--with Helen Harley, who was to him the
personification of all that was delicate and feminine.

After the influence of her eyes, her beauty and her voice was gone, his
old belief that she was really the spy and had stolen the papers
returned. She had made a fool of him by that pathetic appeal to his
mercy and by a simulated appearance of truth. Now in the cold air of the
morning he felt a deep chagrin. But the deed was past and could not be
undone, and seeking to dismiss it from his mind he went to breakfast.

His mother, as he had expected, asked him nothing about his late absence
the night before, but spoke of the reception to General Morgan and the
golden haze that it cast over Richmond.

"Have you noticed, Robert," she asked, "that we see complete victory for
the South again? I ask you once more how many men did General Morgan
bring with him?"

"I don't know exactly, mother. Ten, perhaps."

"And they say that General Grant will have a hundred thousand new
troops."

Prescott laughed.

"At that rate, mother," he replied, "the ten will have to whip the
hundred thousand, which is a heavier proportion than the old one, of one
Southern gentleman to five Yankees. But, seriously, a war is not won by
mere mathematics. It is courage, enthusiasm and enterprise that count."

She did not answer, but poured him another cup of coffee. Prescott read
her thoughts with ease. He knew that though hers had been a Southern
husband and hers were a Southern son and a Southern home, her heart was
loyal to the North, and to the cause that she considered the cause of
the whole Union and of civilization.

"Mother," he said, the breakfast being finished, "I've found it pleasant
here with you and in Richmond, but I'm afraid I can't stay much longer.
My shoulder is almost cured now."

He swung his arm back and forth to show how well it was.

"But isn't there some pain yet?" she asked.

Prescott smiled a little. He saw the pathos in the question, but he
shook his head.

"No, mother," he replied, "there is no pain. I don't mean to be
sententious, but this is the death-grapple that is coming. They will
need me and every one out there."

He waved his hand toward the nor