“Have you any friends there?”
Rose could not tell a lie, and after a moment’s silence, she stammered out:
“Please don’t ask me. Oh, Jimmie, Jimmie, I wish I knew where he was!” and the great tears trickled through the snowy fingers clasped over her flushed face.
“I’ll be darned if I aint cryin’ too,” Bill said, wiping his eyes with his shirt sleeve, “but bein’ I’m in for it I may as well see it through.”
“What might be your name before it was Miss Marthers?”
“Carleton!” and Rose looked up quickly at Bill, who continued:
“You came from Boston, I b’lieve?”
“Yes, from Boston,” and Rose leaned eagerly forward while Bill, with his favorite “Nuff said,” plunged his hand into his pocket, and taking out the picture, passed it to Rose.
Quick as thought the bright color faded from her cheek, and with ashen, quivering lips, she whispered;
“It’s I! It’s mine, taken for Jimmie, just before he went away! How came you by it? Oh tell me!” and in the voice there was a tone of increasing anguish. “Tell me, was it,—was it,—Jimmie, my brother, whom you took prisoner and carried to Washington?”