"So you brought me this letter from the fort. Well, you have done what I hope may prove a great service to the Stars and Stripes. I thank you," he said, looking with smiling eyes at the tired little figure in the brown cape.
Then he asked Sylvia her name, and she told him that no one, not even her dear mother, knew that she had brought the message. Before they had finished their talk he had heard all about the blue cockades that the girls had worn at Miss Patten's school, and of Sylvia's refusal to salute the palmetto flag.
"You see I couldn't do that, because it would mean that I believed that
Estralla ought to be a slave, and of course I don't believe such a
dreadful thing," she explained. So then Mr. Doane heard all about
Estralla and Aunt Connie.
Sylvia decided that she liked Mr. Doane even better than Captain Carleton. And when he told her again that by her courage in bringing him the message from the fort, and by her silence in regard to it, that she had done him a great service, as well as a service to those whose only wish for South Carolina was that the State should free herself from slavery, Sylvia forgot all about the long walk through the shadowy streets.
"I wish I had someone to send with you to see you home safely," Mr.
Doane said, a little anxiously, as they stood together in the little
hallway. "But I am known here, and I fear everything I do is watched.
So I must trust that you will be safely cared for."
Before Sylvia could reply, and say that she was not at all afraid to go alone, the outer door rattled as if someone were trying to push it open.
"You have been followed. Run back to the sitting-room," whispered Mr.
Doane. "I will open the door."
CHAPTER XII
ESTRALLA HELPS
Sylvia, standing just inside the door of the small room, heard the outer door swing open. She heard Mr. Doane's sharp question, and then a familiar wail.