The sergeant had a reverent, simple soul, and lifted his cap from his head as Kaintuck spoke God's name. "The chaplain's right," he said, putting his cap back; "and that there same little soft-spoken chaplain ain't any more afraid of bullets than General Grant or General Lee. And I've been thinkin' I'll find that boy of yours, and I'll do a good part by him." Kaintuck's eyes glistened. "You'll have an orphan asylum soon," he said, remembering that other boy the sergeant had told him he meant to provide for; at which the tall soldier felt his heart sink as with guilt and deception. Presently Kaintuck said: "I think I'll go to sleep now, sergeant. What you said about lookin' out for the boy has made me feel a heap quieter. Just have an eye to him and his mother once in a while; an', sergeant, I want him to grow up a honest man; do you hear that?--a honest man." The sergeant went out of the room and down the jail corridor. No prisoner within its walls felt more sad and dispirited than he. Down the wooden stairs he went, and out the door. At the steps outside was a little one-roomed frame building. In it at a table always sat a young officer, who examined the permits of the people who went in, and to whom the corporal of the guard reported. As the sergeant passed the open door of this little room he suddenly caught sight of a woman's figure clothed in black, standing by the table. The officer, contrary to his custom, had risen from his chair, and stood respectfully. The sergeant could not have moved to save his life. He heard the young woman's voice, as low and patient as Kaintuck's: "I thought, sir, that he was dead. I wouldn't have forgot him or neglected him for anything. I came right away from home, 'way down in Jo Daviess County, as soon as I could." "You will find him very much changed, madam," answered the young officer, as deferentially as if the poor young country woman was the general's wife. "He has been well attended to, as he was a quiet and well-behaved prisoner, and the doctors have worked faithfully with him." "I know, that, sir," she replied. "Your men was very good to me when I was alone, and I thought my husband was dead, and I had nobody but my child. The cap'n looked out for me, though I was nothing but a poor woman, and--some others--" She stopped suddenly, and the color stole into her pallid cheeks, when, looking up, she saw the sergeant standing white and dazed-looking before her. She turned a brilliant red, and then, in an instant, the color dropped out of her face as the mercury drops down in the tube. The officer caught her and placed her in the chair from which he had risen. "Mary," cried the sergeant, coming forward and taking her hand, "I didn't know it no more than you did. Don't look at me that way. Before God, I never would have deceived you. You know I ain't written you a line since I found this out less'n a week ago."