He opened the door an inch or so and, looking out, beheld a city silent and dark, like a city of the dead.
"Come," he said, and the two went out into the silence and cold desolation. He glanced back and saw the door yet open a few inches. Then it closed and the brave old maid was left alone.
The girl shivered at the first touch of the night and Prescott asked anxiously if she found the cold too great.
"Only for a moment," she replied. "Which way shall we go?"
He started at the question, not yet having chosen a course, and replied in haste:
"We must reach the Baltimore road; it is not so far to the Northern pickets, and when we approach them I can leave you."
"And you?" she said, "What is to become of you?"
All save her eyes was hidden by the dark cloak, but she looked up and he saw there a light like that which had shone when she came forth to meet him in the house.
"I?" he replied lightly. "Don't worry about me. I shall return to Richmond and then help my army to fight and beat your army. Really General Lee couldn't spare me, you know. Come!"
They stole forward, two shadows in the deeper shadow, the dry snow rustling like paper under their feet. From some far point came the faint cry of a sentinel, announcing to a sleepy world that all was well, and after that the silence hung heavily as ever over the city. The cold was not unpleasant to either of them, muffled as they were in heavy clothing, for it imparted briskness and vigour to their strong young bodies, and they went on at a swift pace through the densest part of the city, into the thinning suburbs and then toward the fields and open spaces which lay on the nearer side of the earthworks. Not a human being did they see not a dog barked at them as they passed, scarcely a light showed in a window; all around them the city lay in a lethargy beneath its icy covering.