They approached the inner line of earthworks through which they had passed in the flight and pursuit, and now Prescott felt it his duty to find the way back, without pausing to reflect on the strangeness of the fact that he, a Confederate soldier, was seeking to escape the notice of the Confederate pickets for the sake of a spy belonging to the other side.
They saw again the sentinels walking back and forth, gun on shoulder, and waiting until they were farthest apart, Prescott touched the woman on the arm. "Now is our time," he said, and they slid with soundless footsteps between the sentinels and back into Richmond.
"That was well done!" said Prescott joyfully. "You can shut an army out of a town, but you can't close the way to one man or two."
"Captain Prescott," said the girl, "you have brought me back into Richmond. Why not let me go now?"
"I take you to the house from which you came," he replied.
"That is your Southern chivalry," she said, "the chivalry of which I have heard so much."
He was stung by the keen irony in her tone. She had seemed to him, for awhile, so humble and appealing that he had begun to feel, in a sense, her protector, and he did not expect a jeer at the expense of himself and his section. He had been merciful to her, too! He had sacrificed himself and perhaps injured his cause that he might spare her.
"Is a woman who plays the part of a spy, a part that most men would scorn, entitled to much consideration?" he asked bluntly.
She regarded him with a cold stare, and her figure stiffened as he had seen it stiffen once before.
"I am not a spy," she said, "and I may have reasons, powerful reasons, of which you know nothing, for this attempted flight from Richmond to-night," she replied; "but that does not mean that I will explain them to you."