The Northerner read it carefully.
"_Pass Virginia Cary and escort through all Confederate lines and give safe-conduct wherever possible._ "R.E.

LEE, _General_." The reader crushed the paper in his fist, while his hand sank slowly to his side, then he raised his head and asked, in a voice which was strangely out of keeping with a Lieutenant-Colonel of the Union Cavalry: "And who was to be her escort?
You ?" The captive nodded, smiling his sad, grim smile; and the captor swallowed hard as he moved to the cabin door and stood listening to the muttered rumble of the river guns.
"I'm sorry, Cary," he whispered brokenly; "more sorry than you can understand." For a long time no one spoke, then the Southerner went to Virgie, dropping his hand in tenderness on her tumbled hair.
"Just go into your room, honey; I want to talk to Colonel Morrison." She looked up at him doubtfully; but he added, with a reassuring smile: "It's all right, darling.

I'll call you in just a minute." Still Virgie seemed to hesitate.

She shifted her doubting eyes toward the Union officer, turned, and obeyed in silence, closing the door of the adjoining room behind her.

Then the two men faced each other, without the hampering presence of the child, each conscious of the coming tragedy that both, till now, had striven manfully to hide.