"Did you find the spy, Mr. Talbot?" he asked.
"No," replied Talbot, with ill-concealed aversion; "there was nothing in the house."
"I thought it likely that some one would be found there," said the Secretary thoughtfully. "Miss Grayson has never hidden her Northern sympathies, and a woman is just fanatic enough to help in such a business."
Then he dismissed Talbot and his men—the Secretary had at times a curt and commanding manner—and took Prescott's arm in his with an appearance of great friendship and confidence.
"I want to talk with you a bit about this affair, Captain Prescott," he said. "You are going back to the front soon, and in the shock of the great battles that are surely coming such a little thing will disappear from your mind; but it has its importance, nevertheless. Now we do not know whom to trust. I may have seemed unduly zealous. Confess that you have thought so, Captain Prescott."
Prescott did not reply and the Secretary smiled.
"I knew it," he continued; "you have thought so, and so have many others in Richmond, but I must do my duty, nevertheless. This spy, I am sure, is yet in the city; but while she cannot get out herself, she may have ways of forwarding to the enemy what she steals from us. There is where the real danger lies, and I am of the opinion that the spy is aided by some one in Richmond, ostensibly a friend of the Southern cause. What do you think of it, Captain?"
The young Captain was much startled, but he kept his countenance and answered with composure:
"I really don't know anything about it, Mr. Sefton. I chanced to be passing, and as Mr. Talbot, who is one of my best friends, asked me to go in with him, I did so."
"And it does credit to your zeal," said the Secretary. "It is in fact a petty business, but that is where you soldiers in the field have the advantage of us administrators. You fight in great battles and you win glory, but you don't have anything to do with the little things."