rely to preserve it. That's the
envelope of a different letter,--a letter from my mother."

"Are you Mrs. John H----?" asked her questioner again. She had turned
partly aside and was looking across the apartment and out through a
window. He spoke once more. "Is this your name?"

"What, sir?"

He smiled cynically.

"Please don't do that again, madam."

She blushed down into the collar of her dress.

"That is my name, sir."

The man put the missive to his nose, snuffed it softly, and looked
amused, yet displeased.

"Mrs. H----, did you notice just a faint smell of--garlic--about
this--?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, I have no less than three or four others with the very same
odor." He smiled on. "And so, no doubt, we are both of the same private
opinion that the bearer of this letter was--who, Mrs. H----?"

Mrs. H---- frequently by turns raised her eyes honestly to her
questioner's and dropped them to where, in her lap, the fingers of one
hand fumbled with a lone wedding-ring on the other, while she said:--

"Do you think, sir, if you were in my place you would like to give the
name of the person you thought had risked his life to bring you word
that your husband--your wife--was very ill, and needed your presence?
Would you like to do it?"

The officer looked severe.

"Don't you know perfectly well that wasn't his principal errand inside
our lines?"

"No."

"No!" echoed the man; "and you don't know perfectly well, I suppose,
that he's been shot at along this line times enough to have turned his
hair white? Or that he crossed the river for the third time last night,
loaded down with musket-caps for the rebels?"

"No."

"But you must admit you know a certain person, wherever he may be, or
whatever he may be doing, named Raphael Ristofalo?"

"I do not."

The officer smiled again.

"Yes, I see. That is to say, you don't _admit_ it. And you don't deny
it."

The reply came more slowly:--

"I do not."

"Well, now, Mrs. H----, I've given you a pretty long audience. I'll tell
you what I'll do. But do you please tell me, first, you affirm on your
word of honor that your name is really Mrs. H----; that you are no spy,
and have had no voluntary communication with any, and that you are a
true and sincere Union woman."

"I affirm it all."

"Well, then, come in to-morrow at this hour, and if I am going to give
you a pass at all I'll give it to you then. Here, here's your letter."

As she received the miss