“I think I know,” Dorothea said, in a low voice. “Val is a Red String.”
Miss Imogene turned to the girl beside her with a quick motion, as if she was surprised.
“I never thought of that. What makes you say so?” she asked.
“There isn’t any other way to explain it,” Dorothea replied. “He must be something like that, otherwise—”
She broke off, and for a moment or two they both sat thinking over the situation.
“It is of course an explanation,” Miss Imogene commented, “but I don’t know whether it is a reasonable one or not. I don’t know.” She repeated the words several times, evidently puzzled. “After all the main thing is that the boy escaped. But now he’s come back and is in a worse position than he was then. He’ll be shot if he’s caught this time.”
“He didn’t seem at all afraid of that,” Dorothea explained. “He was only impatient to be on his way to warn the Union men. I couldn’t help in that, of course; but I confess, Cousin Imogene, I hope he succeeds.”
“You’re more of a Yankee than you were when I left,” Miss Imogene returned with something of a smile. “But you mustn’t talk to me about it. Nor to any one else,” she added. “They don’t want Yankee sympathizers in this country, nor yet in this house, honey, so you must be careful what you say.”
“Of course,” Dorothea answered. “And it isn’t that I want the South to be beaten exactly. Only, I do want this war to end—”
“Oh, you are such an imaginative person, Dorothea,” Miss Imogene cut in sharply. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the figure of April coming up to the open window behind them. “And you haven’t asked me anything about my trip. My dear, it was dreadful. The roads are lakes.”