nd its dealings with foreign nations. As
for himself, he recognized the fact that he was not too old to learn,
and Mr. Sefton was teaching him.

Prescott listened with outward respect, but the words were so much mist
to his brain, evaporating easily. Nor did Mr. Harley's obvious purpose
trouble him as much as it had on previous occasions, the figure of the
Secretary not looming so large in his path as it used to.

He was on his way, two hours later, to the little house in the side
street, bending his face to a keen winter blast that cut like the edge
of a knife. He heard the wooden buildings popping as they contracted
under the cold, and near the outskirts of the town he saw the little
fires burning where the sentinels stopped now and then on their posts to
warm their chilled fingers. He was resolved now to protect Lucia
Catherwood. The belief of others that the woman of the brown cloak was
guilty aroused in him the sense of opposition. She must be innocent!

He knocked again at the door, and as before it did not yield until he
had knocked several times. It was then Miss Charlotte Grayson who
appeared, and to Prescott's heightened fancy she seemed thinner and more
acidulous than ever. There was less of fear in her glance than when he
came the first time, but reproach took its place, and was expressed so
strongly that Prescott exclaimed at once:

"I do not come to annoy you, Miss Grayson, but merely to inquire after
yourself and your friend, Miss Catherwood."

Then he went in, uninvited, and looked about the room. Nothing was
changed except the fire, which was lower and feebler; it seemed to
Prescott that the two or three lumps of coal on the hearth were hugging
each other for scant comfort, and even as he looked at it the timbers of
the house popped with the cold.

"Miss Catherwood is still with you, is she not?" asked Prescott. "My
errand concerns her, and it is for her good that I have come."

"Why do you, a Confederate officer, trouble yourself about a woman who,
you say, has acted as a spy for the North?" asked Miss Grayson,
pointedly.

Prescott hesitated and flushed. Then he answered:

"I hope, Miss Grayson, that I shall never be able to overlook a woman in
distress."

His eyes wandered involuntarily to the feeble fire, and then in its turn
the thin face of Miss Grayson flushed. For a moment, in her
embarrassment, she looked almost beautiful.

"Miss Catherwood is still here, is she not?" repeated Presc