United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Fiction
She then began to speculate upon the poor fellow’s chances. She wondered
if he were hungry and felt sure, from his face, that he was. She could
do nothing to get him food, but perhaps some money might help him.
“Oh, if I could only do something for the poor soul,” she thought to
herself and, on the impulse, rose to her feet and slipped out into the
hall unnoticed.
She had no very clear idea of just what she wanted to do. Her action was
wholly governed by the sympathy aroused by the man’s evident suffering.
She opened the front door and ran lightly along the gallery until she
came to the end of it, then peered round the corner toward the window
where she had seen the face. The illumination inside had not been so
bright that her eyes did not quickly accustom themselves to the darkness
without, but she rubbed them to be sure that she was not mistaken, for
there was no one in sight. In reality the time that had passed between
her first glimpse of the mysterious man and her search for him was so
very short that it was hard to believe that the stranger had vanished so
quickly; however he was nowhere to be seen and, for his own sake,
Dorothea dared not go farther.
Instead she turned swiftly to slip back into the house, but in so doing
she ran into a figure hurrying along the gallery.
“Oh!” she cried involuntarily, stepping aside. For an instant she could
not see who it was. “Is it you, April?” she asked, dimly making out her
cousin’s figure.
“Yes,” came the answer, after a moment’s hesitation. “I—I—what are you
doing here, Dorothea?”
The English girl was not minded to explain, yet she disliked concealing
the truth. On the other hand to tell this fanatical Southern girl that
she believed an escaped prisoner had been there would be to put the man
in jeopardy at once. A hue and cry after the poor fellow would be
started, and Dorothea would do a good deal to avoid that. In the end she
was not forced to answer.
“Dorothea,” April said breathlessly, coming nearer and lowering her
voice, “please go in, and don’t tell any one that I am out here. Please
go.”
Without a word Dorothea went, slipped back into her place unnoticed, but
she was vastly puzzled over April’s mysterious action, for it was
impossible to believe that her Rebel cousin could have anything to do
with an escaping Yankee prisoner. She shook her head as other
explanations crowded in upon her, finding no satisfactory solution to
the puzzle.
When at last her good-nights were said and Dorothea was back in her room
making ready for bed, she quickly dismissed Lucy and sat down in front
of the fire, her thoughts filled with the day’s experiences.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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