“Ah, but, Miss Drummond,” Tracy answered, “you must remember that they have been doing it in this country for years and years and they don’t see any harm in it. You must take things as you find them, I suppose; though I confess this huntin’ men with hounds goes against the grain with me.”
“Will they catch him, do you think?” she questioned, more anxiously than he could possibly know.
“There aren’t many escape safely from Andersonville,” he answered. “Some of them do get out; but they’re brought back sooner or later, poor creatures.”
“Why do you have such prisons?” Dorothea demanded almost angrily.
“Nay, Miss Drummond,” he returned quickly, “don’t blame me for these prisons. They’re none of mine. I’m only a small cog in a very big wheel; but to tell the truth the problem isn’t as easy a one to solve as you’d think. We can’t give our own men enough food and clothes, so you’d hardly expect the prisoners to fare better.”
Dorothea was about to reply when Hal May came hurriedly across the dancing floor and stopped beside them.
“Val,” he said, under his breath, “you’ll have to excuse yourself to Dorothea. You’ll let him go, won’t you?” he went on directly to the girl. “Fielding, who was out last night after that escaped officer, is back again and wants to see us. I told him we’d talk to him in my bed chamber, upstairs. It was the only private spot I could think of. Take Dorothea to mother, and join us as quickly as you can.” Hal went away hurriedly and Tracy started across the room toward where Mrs. May was sitting with some of the elder ladies.
Dorothea walked beside him mechanically. The man upstairs was lost. They would come upon him, sleeping in Hal’s room, and the poor fellow would have to go back to the prison horrors from which he had tried, so desperately, to escape. And there was nothing she could do. Already, she supposed, Hal and the man Fielding were upstairs. She shrank from contact with these chattering people. She wanted to be alone, to think of some way of escape for the poor man if she could.
“I don’t wish to go to Aunt ’Thenia for a moment,” she whispered, when they were half way across the room. “I would rather go out on the gallery for a breath of air.”
He looked at her sharply, and noted that her face had suddenly grown pale.