re so
numerous during the middle times of the war--those middle times after
the first high hopes had been disappointed, and before the policy of
concentration had been adopted by the North--that slow, dogged North of
yours that kept going back and beginning over again, until at last it
found out how to do it. This little siege was long and weary, and when
at last the Federal vessels went suddenly out beyond the bar again, and
the town, unconquered, but crippled and suffering, lay exhausted on the
shore, there was not much cause for rejoicing. Still I rejoiced; for I
thought that Rafe would come. I did not know that his precious furlough
had expired while he was shut up in the beleaguered city, and that his
colonel had sent an imperative summons, twice repeated. Honor, loyalty,
commanded him to go, and go immediately. He went.

"The next tidings that came to me brought word that he loved me and was
well; the next, that he loved me and was well; the next, that he loved
me and was--dead. Madam, my husband, Ralph Kinsolving, was shot--as a
spy!

"You start--you question--you doubt. But spies were shot in those days,
were they not? That is a matter of history. Very well; you are face to
face now with the wife of one of them.

"You did not expect such an ending, did you? You have always thought of
spies as outcasts, degraded wretches, and, if you remembered their wives
at all, it was with the idea that they had not much feeling, probably,
being so low down in the scale of humanity. But, madam, in those bitter,
hurrying days men were shot as spies who were no spies. Nay, let me
finish; I know quite well that the shooting was not confined to one
side; I acknowledge that; but it was done, and mistakes were made. Now
and then chance brings a case to light, so unmistakable in its proof
that those who hear it shudder--as now and then also chance brings a
coffin to light whose occupant was buried alive, and came to himself
when it was too late. But what of the cases that chance does _not_ bring
to light?

"My husband was no spy; but it had been a trying time for the Northern
commanders: suspicion lurked everywhere; the whole North clamored to
them to advance, and yet their plans, as fast as they made them, were
betrayed in some way to the enemy. An example was needed--my husband
fell in the way.

"He explained the suspicious circumstances of his case, but a cloud of
witnesses rose up against him, and he proudly closed his lips