Before the Dawn Part 20

Miss Grayson remained resolutely in her chair and stared steadily into the fire, ignoring the search, after her short and sharp talk with Talbot, who took his soldiers into the other rooms, glad to get out of her presence. Prescott lingered behind, anxious to catch the eye of Miss Grayson and to have a word with her, but she ignored him as pointedly as she had ignored Talbot, though he walked heavily about, making his boots clatter on the floor. Still that terrifying old maid stared into the fire, as if she were bent upon watching every flickering flame and counting every coal.

Her silence at last grew so ominous and weighed so heavily upon Prescott's spirits that he fled from the room and joined Talbot, who growled and asked him why he had not come sooner, saying: "A real friend would stay with me and share all that's disagreeable."

Prescott wondered what the two women would say of him when they found Miss Catherwood, but he was glad afterward to remember that his chief feeling was for Miss Catherwood and not for himself. He expected every moment that they would find her, and it was hard to keep his heart from jumping. He looked at every chair and table and sofa, dreading lest he should see the famous brown cloak lying there.

It was a small house with not many rooms, and the search took but a short time. They pa.s.sed from one to another seeing nothing suspicious, and came to the last. "She is here," thought Prescott, "fleeing like a hunted hare to the final covert." But she was not there--and it was evident that she was not in the house at all. It was impossible for one in so small a s.p.a.ce to have eluded the searchers. Talbot heaved a sigh of relief, and Prescott felt as if he could imitate him.

"A nasty job well done," said Talbot.

They went back to the sitting-room, where the lady of the house was still confiding her angry thoughts to the red coals.

"Our search is ended," said Talbot politely to Miss Grayson, "and I am glad to say that we have found nothing."

The lady's gaze was not deflected a particle, nor did she reply.

"I bid you good-day, Miss Grayson," continued Talbot, "and hope that you will not be annoyed again in this manner."

Still no reply nor any change in the confidences pa.s.sing between the lady and the red coals.

Talbot gathered up his men with a look and hurried outside the house, followed in equal haste by Prescott.

"How warm it is out here!" exclaimed Talbot, as he stood in the snow.

"Warm?" said Prescott in surprise, looking around at the chill world.

"Yes, in comparison with the temperature in there," said Talbot, pointing to Miss Grayson's house.

Prescott laughed, and he felt a selfish joy that the task had been Talbot's and not his. But he was filled, too, with wonder. What had become of Miss Catherwood?

They had just turned into the main street, when they met Mr. Sefton, who seemed expectant.

"Did you find the spy, Mr. Talbot?" he asked.

"No," replied Talbot, with ill-concealed aversion; "there was nothing in the house."

"I thought it likely that some one would be found there," said the Secretary thoughtfully. "Miss Grayson has never hidden her Northern sympathies, and a woman is just fanatic enough to help in such a business."

Then he dismissed Talbot and his men--the Secretary had at times a curt and commanding manner--and took Prescott's arm in his with an appearance of great friends.h.i.+p and confidence.

"I want to talk with you a bit about this affair, Captain Prescott," he said. "You are going back to the front soon, and in the shock of the great battles that are surely coming such a little thing will disappear from your mind; but it has its importance, nevertheless. Now we do not know whom to trust. I may have seemed unduly zealous. Confess that you have thought so, Captain Prescott."

Prescott did not reply and the Secretary smiled.

"I knew it," he continued; "you have thought so, and so have many others in Richmond, but I must do my duty, nevertheless. This spy, I am sure, is yet in the city; but while she cannot get out herself, she may have ways of forwarding to the enemy what she steals from us. There is where the real danger lies, and I am of the opinion that the spy is aided by some one in Richmond, ostensibly a friend of the Southern cause. What do you think of it, Captain?"

The young Captain was much startled, but he kept his countenance and answered with composure:

"I really don't know anything about it, Mr. Sefton. I chanced to be pa.s.sing, and as Mr. Talbot, who is one of my best friends, asked me to go in with him, I did so."

"And it does credit to your zeal," said the Secretary. "It is in fact a petty business, but that is where you soldiers in the field have the advantage of us administrators. You fight in great battles and you win glory, but you don't have anything to do with the little things."

"Our lives are occupied chiefly with little things; the great battles take but a few hours in our existence."

"But you have a free and open life," said the Secretary. "It is true that your chance of death is great, but all of us must come to that, sooner or later. As I said, you are in the open; you do not have any of the mean work to do."

The Secretary sighed and leaned a little on Prescott's arm. The young Captain regarded him out of the corner of his eye, but he could read nothing in his companion's face. Mr. Sefton's air was that of a man a-weary--one disgusted with the petty ways and intrigues of office.

They walked on together, though Prescott would have escaped could he have done so, and many people, noting the two thus arm in arm, said to each other that young Captain Prescott must be rising in favour, as everybody knew Mr. Sefton to be a powerful man.

Feeling sure that this danger was past for the present, Robert went home to his mother, who received him in the sitting-room with a slight air of agitation unusual in one of such a placid temper.

"Well, mother, what is the matter?" he asked. "One would think from your manner that you have been taking part in this search for the spy."

"And that I am suffering from disappointment because the spy has not been found?"

"How did you know that, mother?"

"The cook told me. Do you suppose that such an event as this would escape the notice of a servant? Why, I am prepared to gossip about it myself."

"Well, mother, there is little to be said. You told me this morning that you hoped the spy would not be found, and your wish has come true."

"I see no reason to change my wish," she said. "The Confederate Government has heavier work to do now than to hunt for a spy."

But Prescott noticed during the remainder of the afternoon and throughout supper that his mother's slight attacks of agitation were recurrent. There was another change in her. She was rarely a demonstrative woman, even to her son, and though her only child, she had never spoiled him; but now she was very solicitous for him. Had he suffered from the cold? Was he to be a.s.signed to some particularly hard duty? She insisted, too, upon giving him the best of food, and Prescott, wis.h.i.+ng to please her, quietly acquiesced, but watched her covertly though keenly.

He knew his mother was under the influence of some unusual emotion, and he judged that this house-to-house search for a spy had touched a soft heart.

"Mother," he said, after supper, "I think I shall go out for awhile this evening."

"Do go by all means," she said. "The young like the young, and I wish you to be with your friends while you are in Richmond."

Prescott looked at her in surprise. She had never objected to his spending the evening elsewhere, but this was the first time she had urged him to go. Yes, "urged" was the word, because her tone indicated it. However, she was so good about asking no questions that he asked none in return, and went forth without comment.

His steps, as often before, led him to Winthrop's office, where he and his friends had grown into the habit of meeting and discussing the news.

To-night Wood came in, too, and sat silently in a chair, whittling a pine stick with a bowie-knife and evidently in deep thought. His continued stay in Richmond excited comment, because he was a man of such restless activity. He had never before been known to remain so long in one place, though now the frozen world, making military operations impossible or impracticable, offered fair excuse.

"That man Sefton came to see me to-day," he said after a long silence.

"He wanted to know just how we are going to whip the enemy. What a fool question! I don't like Sefton. I wish he was on the other side!"

A slight smile appeared on the faces of most of those present. All men knew the reason why the mountain General did not like the Secretary, but no one ventured upon a teasing remark. The great black-haired cavalryman, sitting there, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g off pine shavings with a razor-edged bowie-knife, seemed the last man in the world to be made the subject of a jest.

Prescott left at midnight, but he did not reach home until an hour later, having done an errand in the meanwhile. In the course of the day he had marked a circ.u.mstance of great interest and importance. Frame houses when old and as lightly built as that in the little side street are likely to sag somewhere. Now, at a certain spot the front door of this house failed to meet the floor by at least an eighth of an inch, and Prescott proposed to take advantage of the difference.

In the course of the day he had counted his remaining gold with great satisfaction. He had placed one broad, s.h.i.+ning twenty-dollar piece in a small envelope, and now as he walked through the snow he fingered it in his pocket, feeling all the old satisfaction.

He was sure--it was an intuition as well as the logical result of reasoning--that Lucia Catherwood was still in the city and would return to Miss Grayson's cottage. Now he bent his own steps that way, looking up at the peaceful moon and down at the peaceful capital. Nothing was alight except the gambling houses; the dry snow crunched under his feet, but there was no other sound save the tread of an occasional sentinel, and the sharp crack of the timbers in a house contracting under the great cold.

A wind arose and moaned in the desolate streets of the dark city.

Prescott bent to the blast, and s.h.i.+vering, drew the collar of his military cloak high about his ears. Then he laughed at himself for a fool because he was going to the help of two women who probably hated and scorned him; but he went on.