"It is as I told you, Lucia," said Miss Grayson; "you must not think of leaving. My house is your house, and all that is here is yours."
"I know that, Charlotte," replied Miss Catherwood, "but I cannot take the bread from your mouth nor can I bring new dangers upon you."
She spoke the last words in a low tone, but Prescott heard her nevertheless. What a situation, he thought; and he, a Confederate soldier, was a party to it! Here in the dim little room were two women of another belief, almost another land, and around them lay the hostile city. He felt a thrill of pity; once more he believed her claim that she did not take the papers; and he tapped uneasily on the window pane with a long forefinger.
"Miss Catherwood," he said hesitatingly—that he should address her and not Miss Grayson seemed entirely proper—"I scarcely know why I am here, but I wish to repeat that I did not come with any bad intent. I am a Confederate soldier, but the Confederacy is not yet so far reduced that it needs to war on women."
Yet he knew as he spoke that he had believed her a spy and his full duty demanded that he deliver her to his Government; but perhaps there was a difference between one's duty and one's full duty.
"I merely wished to know that you were safe here," he continued, "and now I shall go."
"We thank you for your forbearance, Captain Prescott," said the elder woman, but the younger said nothing, and Prescott waited a moment, hoping that she would do so. Still she did not speak, and as she moved toward the door she did not offer her hand.
"She has no thanks for me, after all that I have done," thought Prescott, and there was a little flame of anger in his heart. Why should he trouble himself about her?
"Ladies," he said, with an embarrassed air, "you will pardon me if I open the door an inch or two and look out before I go. You understand why."
"Oh, certainly," replied Miss Catherwood, and again that faint smile lurked for a moment in the corners of her mouth. "We are Pariahs, and it would ill suit the fair fame of Captain Prescott to be seen coming from this house."