th though not wholly of either, but her
sympathies from the first had turned to the North, not so much through
personal feeling, but because of a belief that it would be better for
the North to triumph. The armies had come, her uncle with whom she had
lived had fallen in battle, and their home was destroyed, by which army
she did not know. Then she turned involuntarily to her nearest relative,
Miss Grayson, in whose home she knew she would receive protection, and
who, she knew, too, would share her sympathies. So she had come to
Richmond.

She said nothing of the accusation, the affair of the papers, and
Prescott longed to ask her again if she were guilty, and to hear her say
that she was not. He was not willing to believe her a spy, that she
could ever stoop to such an act; and here in the darkness with her by
his side, with only purity and truth in her eyes, he could not believe
her one. But when she was away he knew that his doubts would return.
Then he would ask himself if he had not been tricked and used by a woman
as beautiful and clever as she was ruthless. Now he saw only her beauty
and what seemed to him the truth of her eyes, and he swore again
silently and for the twentieth time that he would not leave her until he
saw her safe within the Northern lines. So little thought he then of his
own risks, and so willing a traitor was he, for a moment, and for the
sake of one woman's eyes, to the cause that he served. But a traitor
only in seeming, and not in reality, he would have said of himself with
truth.

"What do you intend to do now?" asked Prescott at last.

"There is much in the trail of our army that I can do," she said. "There
will be many wounded soon."

"Yes, when the snow goes," said Prescott. "Doesn't it seem strange that
the dead cold of winter alone should mean peace nowadays?"

Both spoke solemnly. For the time the thought of war inspired Prescott
with the most poignant repulsion, since he was taking this girl to the
army which he expected to fight.

"There is one question which I should like to ask you," he said after
awhile.

"What is it?"

"Where were you hidden that day my friend Talbot searched for you and I
looked on?"

She glanced quickly up into his face, and her lips curved in the
slightest smile. There was, too, a faint twinkle in her eye.

"You have asked me for the second time the one question that I cannot
answer," she replied. "I am sorry to disappoint you, Captain Prescott