She shuddered.
“I must be plain with you,” continued Walker. “I am not what I have seemed to be while with the Federals. I am a colonel in the Confederate army, but I accepted a commission in the so-called Union army, that I might furnish information to my Generals. Or, if you like the term better, you may call me a spy. These two soldiers have been with me for the same purpose. And we were not alone. There are now, in the army of the Mississippi, over three hundred privates, and over twenty officers, who pretend loyalty to the Federal cause; and I think, when his sister has become the wife of Captain Walker, or Colonel Brown, he may be induced to join us!”
“Will you take me to my brother?”
“On one condition, I will.”
“And this condition?”
“Miss Hayward, I love you with all the ardor of my soul. You have become necessary to my very existence—are a part of my life. When you spurned me, it drove me frantic, and I am so now. Beware—oh! beware how you turn this heart, which is yet pure, so far as you are concerned, into a hell of furies! Pity me! Oh! dear Miss Hayward, pity me!”
“But my brother—what of him?”
“I will tell you of your brother when you have answered my questions.”
“Proceed, sir!”
“Do not speak so coldly. I will be frank with you. Your brother is a prisoner—not in the Confederate camp, but in a secure place, on the very stream beside which you are now sitting. The murmuring and singing of these very waters will, ere two hours, greet his ears with the same strain. Warble those strains to which I have so often listened while in camp, and which stirred my soul, and they will be borne direct to your brother’s hearing, to relieve his brain perhaps from the insanity which now enchains him!”