"Don't, please. It's useless to quibble and argue with me longer. We
face each other with souls bare. I don't ask you why you have deceived
me. Your business as a Federal spy is to deceive the enemy--"

"You are not my enemy," he interrupted in a sudden burst of passion.
"You are my mate! You are mine by all the laws of God and nature. I love
you. I worship you. We are _not_ enemies. We never have been--we never
shall be. With the last breath I breathe your name shall be on my
lips--"

"You may speak your last word soon--"

"What do you mean?"

"I am going to surrender you to the authorities--"

"And you have just been sobbing in my arms--the man you have sworn to
love forever?"

"It's the only atonement I can make. Through you I have betrayed my
country and my people. I would gladly die in your place. The hard thing
will be to do my duty and give you up to the death you have earned."

"You can deliver me to execution?"

"Yes--" was the firm answer. "Listen to this--"

She seized a copy of the morning paper.

"Colonel Dahlgren's instructions to his men. This document was found on
his person when shot. There is no question of its genuineness--"

She paused and read in cold hard tones:

"Guides, pioneers (with oakum, turpentine and torpedoes), signal
officer, quarter master, commissary, scouts, and picket men in rebel
uniform--remain on the north bank and move down with the force on the
south bank. If communications can be kept up without giving an alarm
it must be done. Everything depends upon a surprise, and no one must
be allowed to pass ahead of this column. All mills must be burned and
the canal destroyed. Keep the force on the southern side posted of
any important movement of the enemy, and in case of danger some of
the scouts must swim the river and bring us information. We must try
to secure the bridge to the city (one mile below Belle Isle) and
release the prisoners at the same time. If we do not succeed they
must then dash down, and we will try to carry the bridge from each
side. The bridges once secured, and the prisoners loosed and over the
river, the bridges will be secured and the city destroyed--"

Jennie paused and lifted her eyes burning with feverish light.

"Merciful God! How? With oakum and turpentine. A city of one hundred
thousand inhabitants, under the cover of darkness--men, women and
children, the aged, the poor, the he