“That will do very well, thank you,” came the whispered answer. “I shall make that my resting place so you’ll have no cause to worry about coming back to your room whenever you want to. I will take the food, then be off. Thank you a thousand times.”
“Is there nothing else I can do for you?” Dorothea asked hurriedly. Somehow she had grown to have something of a personal interest in this man on the roof. She hadn’t seen his face, and she was by no means sympathetic with his cause. But he was wounded and in danger of going back to Andersonville Prison, which she had heard Southerners themselves acknowledge was far from a cheerful place. She would do what she could to help him escape.
“No, not a thing,” he answered back.
“Very well then,” she went on. “I shall leave some handkerchiefs on the washstand for your wound. That’s the best linen I have. You can come in and warm up by the fire, where I’ll put the sandwiches and wine. I hope you get—”
She did not finish the sentence, for again a knock came at the door and Lucy’s voice reached her.
“Miss Dee, please—”
She ran across the room and, opening the door a crack, took the plate and glass out of the astonished girl’s hands.
“Wait for me on the stairs,” Dorothea ordered. “I shall be going down in a moment.”
She saw Lucy’s eyes widen with surprise, but there was no time to invent excuses. She knew that if she did not shortly make an appearance some of the family would be up looking for her, so she hurried back to the hearth and placed the plate and wine in the fire-light. Then, tiptoeing to the window, she opened it full.
“I’m going,” she whispered; and the next moment she had blown out the candle and closed the door behind her with some little noise.