“Where have you been to look for enemies?” Miss Imogene demanded with a fine show of surprise. “Did you not know?” he asked, with lifted brow. “There’s been a great hue and cry after an escaped prisoner. The same fellow they were hunting for last night. It seems they haven’t caught him and were persuaded he was still here. As if he’d ever been here at all! And I losing half a dozen dances by their silliness.” “He _didn’t_ see!” Miss Imogene thought, with a great sense of relief, and then aloud, “Is that where all the men have been?” “It is,” he answered. “We’ve been through the house. They left it to me to search your room. I haven’t done it—yet.” He hesitated just an instant on the last word and again her anxiety came back to Miss Imogene. “He does know after all and is warning me,” she told herself but still could not be certain. When he had first come over to her she had been determined to tell him all, and beg that Larry Stanchfield might remain under her care till he had recovered. Now she racked her brains to know what course was wisest, and then, suddenly, her mind was made up. “Seriously, Val,” she began, “suppose a fair female suddenly came upon a poor fellow in the midst of his enemies and, when she saw him, she found that it was a matter of the affections with her. That instead of a stranger there was the image of her lover. What would you have her do, Val?” She ended with her voice dropped almost to a whisper and looking him full in the face. Tracy did not reply at once but sat gazing across the room with unseeing eyes. Then suddenly he jumped to his feet. “Ah, faith! the best thing to do in a case of that kind, Miss Imogene, is to tell a soft-hearted Irishman.” He laughed and bowed to her. “I think I can get the next dance with Miss Drummond. Sure, I’ll try. It may be the last chance I’ll ever have.” His departure left her puzzled, and she watched him cross the floor to where Dorothea was sitting. Presently the girl’s partner departed, glad to escape so stupid a female, whose only conversation was a vague “yes,” or “no,” which did not come always in the right place. “If the child but keeps up her courage,” Miss Imogene thought, as she watched the scene. Dorothea, meanwhile, was smiling up at Tracy, though she felt all anxiety. She would have given all she had to know the conversation that had taken place between the young officer and Miss Imogene. But she could not even guess at it, so resolved to be on her guard and talk as if what had occurred in the interval since last she saw him, had never happened. This he made easy by referring to their previous conversation. “I come with good news for you, Miss Drummond,” he began. “They haven’t found the escaped prisoner after all.” “I confess I’m glad,” Dorothea said frankly. “Of course that’s not the thing to say here in the South, but I just can’t help being pleased to think any one has gotten away from Andersonville. Hal said it was silly to look for him about here.”