"

He was silent.

She found it hard to control the nervous tremor of her limbs and lips.
The dryness in her throat made speech difficult.

"Then--if there is no chance----"

He bent forward swiftly and snatched her revolver from the table as her
small hand fell heavily upon the spot where the weapon had rested.

"Would you do _that_?" he said in a low voice.

The desperate young eyes answered him. And, after a throbbing silence:
"Won't you let me?" she asked. "It is indecent to h-hang
a--woman--before--men----"

He did not answer.

"Please--please--" she whispered, "give it back to me--if you are
a--soldier.... You can go to the door and call them.... Nobody will
know.... You can turn your back.... It will only take a second!"

A big blue-bottle fly came blundering into the room and filled the
silence with its noise. Years ago the big blue flies sometimes came into
the quiet schoolroom; and how everybody giggled when the taller Miss
Poucher, bristling from her prunella shoes to her stiff side-curls,
charged indignantly upon the buzzing intruder.

Dry--eyed, dry--lipped, the Messenger straightened up, quivering, and
drew a quick, sharp breath; then her head fell forward, and, resting
inert upon the table, she buried her face in her arms. The most
dangerous spy in the Union service--the secret agent who had worked more
evil to the Confederacy than any single Union army corps--the coolest,
most resourceful, most trusted messenger on either side as long as the
struggle lasted--caught at last.

The man, young, Southern, and a gentleman's son, sat staring at her. He
had driven his finger-nails deep into his palms, bitten his underlip
till it was raw.

"Messenger!"

She made no response.

"Are you afraid?"

Her head, prone in her arms, motioned dull negation. It was a lie and he
knew it. He looked at the slender column of the neck--stained to a
delicate amber--at the nape; and he thought of the rope and the knot
under the left ear.

"Messenger," he said once more. "I did not know it was _you_ I was to
meet. Look at me, in God's name!"

She opened her eyes on him, then raised her head.

"Do you know me now?" he asked.

"No."

"Look!"

He touched the scar on his forehead; but there was no recognition in her
eyes.

"Look, I tell you!" he repeated, almost fiercely.

She said wearily: "I have seen so many men--so many men.... I can't
remember you."

"And I have seen many women, Messenger; but I h