He arrived at the moment she had received the long sought information of the date of the army's march. She glanced at the stolid masked face of the messenger and hesitated a moment.
"You are a Southerner?"
Donellan smiled.
"I've spent most of my life in Washington, Madam," he said frankly. "I was a clerk in the Department of the Interior. I cast my fortunes with the South."
It was enough. Her keen intuitions had scented danger in the man's manner, his walk and personality. He was not a typical Southerner. The officials of the Secret Service Bureau had already given her evidence of their suspicious. She could not be too careful.
She seized her pen and hastily wrote in cipher:
"Order issued for McDowell to move on Manassas to-night."
She handed the tiny scrap of paper to Donellan.
"My agents will take you in a buggy with relays of horses down the Potomac to a ferry near Dumfries. You will be ferried across."