Chapter 11

MR. SEFTON MAKES A CONFIDENCE

Prescott now resolved, whatever happened, to make another attempt at the escape of Lucia Catherwood. Threats of danger, unspoken, perhaps, but to his mind not the less formidable, were multiplying, and he did not intend that they should culminate in disaster. The figure of that woman, so helpless and apparently the sole target at this moment of a powerful Government, made an irresistible appeal to him.

But there were moments of doubt, when he asked himself if he were not tricked by the fancy, or rather by a clever and elusive woman--as cunning as she was elusive--who led him, and who looked to the end and not to the means. He saw something repellent in the act of being a spy, above all when it was a woman who took the part. His open nature rejected such a trade, even if it were confined to the deed of a moment done under impulse. She had assured him that she was innocent, and there was a look of truth in her face when she said it; but to say it and to look it was in the business of being a spy, and why should she differ from others?

But these moments were brief; they would come to his mind and yet his mind in turn would cast them out. He remembered her eyes, the swell of her figure, her noble curves. She was not of the material that would turn to so low a trade, he said to himself over and over again.

He was still thinking of a plan to save her and trying to find a way when a message arrived directing him to report at once to the Secretary of War. He surmised that he would receive instructions to rejoin General Lee as soon as possible, and he felt a keen regret that he should not have time to do the thing he wished most to do; but he lost no time in obeying the order.

The Secretary of War was in his office, sitting in a chair near the window, and farther away slightly in the shadow was another figure, more slender but stronger. Prescott recognized again, with that sudden and involuntary feeling of fear, the power of the man. It was Mr. Sefton, his face hidden in the shadows, and therefore wholly unread. But as usual the inflexibility of purpose, the hardening of resolve followed Prescott's emotion, and his figure stiffened as he stood at attention to receive the commands of the mighty--that is, the Secretary of War of the Confederate States of America.

But the Secretary of War was not harsh or fierce; instead, he politely invited the young Captain to a chair and spoke to him in complimentary terms, referring to his gallant services on many battlefields, and declaring them not unknown to those who held the strings of power. Mr. Sefton, from the security of the shadows, merely nodded to their guest, and Prescott returned the welcome in like fashion, every nerve attuned for what he expected to prove an ordeal.

"Many officers are brave," began the Secretary of War, "and it is not the highest compliment when we call you such,