Prescott hesitated, not fancying this oblique method of attack, but a third person relieved them both from present embarrassment. A door to an inner apartment opened, and the woman in brown—but not in brown now—came into the room.
"You need not conceal my presence any longer, Charlotte," said the newcomer impressively. "I thank you, but I am sure that we need no protection from Captain Prescott."
"If you think so, Lucia," replied Miss Grayson, and Prescott distinctly heard her sigh of relief—a sigh that he could have echoed, as he had begun to feel as if he were acting not as a gentleman, but as a persecutor of a poor old maid. The girl—Lucia was her first name, he had learned that much—confronted him, and certainly there was no fear in her gaze. Prescott saw, too, at the first glance, that she was transformed. She was dressed in simple white, and a red rose, glowing by contrast against its whiteness, nestled in her throat. He remembered afterward a faint feeling of curiosity that in the dead of winter she should be wearing such a rose. Her eyes, black when she was angry, were now a deep, liquid blue, and the faint firelight drew gleams of red or gold, he knew not which, from her hair; the hair itself looked dark.
But it was her presence, her indefinable presence that pervaded the room. The thin little old maid was quite lost in it, and involuntarily Prescott found himself bowing as if to a great lady.
"I have meant no harm by coming here," he said; "the secrets of this house are safe as far as I am concerned. I merely came to inquire after your welfare. Miss—Miss——"
He stopped and looked inquiringly at her. A faint smile curved the corners of her mouth, and she replied:
"Catherwood; I am Miss Lucia Catherwood, but for the present I have nothing more to say."
"Catherwood, Lucia Catherwood," repeated Prescott. "It is a beautiful name, like——"
And then, breaking off abruptly, warned by a sudden lightning glance from her eyes, he walked to the window and pointed to the white world outside.
"I came to tell you, Miss Catherwood," he said, "that the snow lies deep on the ground—you know that already—but what I wish to make clear is the impossibility of your present escape from Richmond. Even if you passed the defenses you would almost certainly perish in the frozen wilderness."