“I’m glad to see you, Dorothea,” Hal said in a whisper; but in his searching eyes she read the question he was so anxious to have answered.
She leaned over the bed with a word of greeting, patting and adjusting the pillows under his head.
“It’s all right,” she whispered. “I’ve seen Lee. I expect to give him some money to-morrow. Then he can get away in a hurry, can’t he?”
Hal nodded his head and a smile came over his drawn face.
“Good girl,” he murmured. “Now I can go to sleep,” and without another word he turned over on his side and fell into a quiet doze almost as he spoke.
And Dorothea at last understood why Hal had been so much troubled over this matter. To be in debt to an enemy is a burden hard to bear, and the young man could not rest content until that debt had been discharged. But Dorothea knew also that Lee Hendon deserved more credit than he was ever likely to get from those for whom he had risked his life. The blue uniform he wore added enormously to the danger he had run to save the life of April’s brother. Yet he had taken the risk, spent his scanty supply of money, put his life in jeopardy for the friend of his youth, and all for the sake of the girl he loved. Dorothea was convinced that Lee Hendon was a brave man, and the more she thought of what he had done the more she found to admire in him. No doubt he would be called a traitor to his country. No doubt the fact that he had not volunteered to fight for the South when the war broke out would be but added evidence of his disloyalty. It would be said that he only awaited a favorable opportunity to turn his back upon the land that had given him birth, and that his mother’s illness was made his excuse. They might go further and say that he had remained in the South as long as he could in order to furnish information to the Yankees, for whom he had renounced his country and his kin. All this might be said with some show of evidence to back it, and Dorothea did not disguise from herself that the part of spy and traitor was not one to be admired, no matter how one’s sympathies were drawn. Yet, with all these things in her mind, she could not help a growing admiration for the young man.
And what of April? Granting that she knew of his presence, did she know what Lee Hendon was doing? And if so, what excuse could she give for her complicity? The puzzle grew constantly more and more complex. Dorothea failed to make head or tail out of it.
“It’s all so mixed up,” she said to herself, “that I wouldn’t be surprised to be told I’m the only Red String there is, after all.”
Later in the day she went down stairs, and seated herself on the porch, waiting for Miss Imogene, whose return was expected, and planning how to find an opportunity to secure the money to take to Coulter Woods. She would not rest easy until she had done her part to enable Lee Hendon to rejoin his friends in the North.
Then her thoughts went to Larry Stanchfield. She had scarcely had time to think of him at all, and now she wondered how he fared and speculated upon the motives that had made Val Tracy take such an important part in the young man’s previous escape.