ushed, and for reply produced the rumpled paper from
his boot leg, and handed it over without a word. The Northerner read it
carefully.

"_Pass Virginia Cary and escort through all Confederate lines and
give safe-conduct wherever possible._

"R.E. LEE, _General_."

The reader crushed the paper in his fist, while his hand sank slowly to
his side, then he raised his head and asked, in a voice which was
strangely out of keeping with a Lieutenant-Colonel of the Union Cavalry:

"And who was to be her escort? You?"

The captive nodded, smiling his sad, grim smile; and the captor
swallowed hard as he moved to the cabin door and stood listening to the
muttered rumble of the river guns.

"I'm sorry, Cary," he whispered brokenly; "more sorry than you can
understand."

For a long time no one spoke, then the Southerner went to Virgie,
dropping his hand in tenderness on her tumbled hair.

"Just go into your room, honey; I want to talk to Colonel Morrison." She
looked up at him doubtfully; but he added, with a reassuring smile:
"It's all right, darling. I'll call you in just a minute."

Still Virgie seemed to hesitate. She shifted her doubting eyes toward
the Union officer, turned, and obeyed in silence, closing the door of
the adjoining room behind her. Then the two men faced each other,
without the hampering presence of the child, each conscious of the
coming tragedy that both, till now, had striven manfully to hide. The
one moved forward toward a seat, staggering as he walked, and catching
himself on the table's edge, while the other's hand went out to lend him
aid; but the Southerner waved him off.

"Thank you," he said, as he sank into a chair. "I don't _want_
help--from _you_!"

"Why not?" asked Morrison.

"Because," said Cary, in sullen anger, "I don't ask quarter, nor aid,
from a man who frightens children."

The Northerner's chin went up; and when he replied his voice was
trembling; not in passion, but with a deeper, finer something which had
gripped his admiration for the courage of a child:

"And I wouldn't hurt a hair of her splendid little head!" He paused,
then spoke again, more calmly: "You thought me a beast to frighten her;
but don't you know it was the only thing to do? Otherwise my men might
have had to shoot you--before her eyes." Cary made no answer, though now
he understood; and Morrison went on: "It isn't easy for me to track a
fellow creature down; to take him when he's wounded, p