“Nothing,” said the other bitterly; “I guess he is dead.” “Wait,” said Wilfred. He stepped across the hall, keeping Thorne covered with his revolver. “Don’t move; I will see.” He threw open the door, glanced in, and then came back. “It’s a lie!” he said. “What!” exclaimed Thorne. “There is no one in there. It is just one of your tricks. Call the guard!” He shouted toward the hall, and then toward the window. “Sergeant of the Guard! Captain Thorne is here, in this house.” He stepped out on the porch and shouted again with astonishing power for one so painfully wounded as he. Then the boy felt a faintness come over him. He sank down on a seat on the porch and leaned his head against the house, and sought to recover his strength, fighting a desperate battle; fearful lest Thorne should escape while he was thus helpless. It was Edith Varney who first replied to his frantic summons by hurrying into the room. She was as much surprised to see Thorne as he was to see her. Her heart leaped in her bosom at the sight of him, and she stared at him as at a wraith or a vision. “You wouldn’t tell me an untruth, would you?” said Thorne, coming closer to her. “He was shot in this room an hour ago, my brother Henry. I’d like to take one look at his dead face before they send me the same way. Where is he? Can’t you tell me that much, Miss Varney? Is he in the house?” Edith looked at his face, shook her head a little, and moved away from him toward the table. Thorne threw up his hands in a gesture of despair, and turned toward the window. As he did so, Wilfred, having recovered from his faintness a little, called out again: “The guard! The escaped prisoner, Captain Thorne!” This time his frantic outcry was answered. At last they were closing in upon the wretched man. He turned from the window and faced the girl, scarcely less wretched than he, and laughed shortly. “They are on the scent, you see,” he said; “they’ll get me in a minute; and when they do, it won’t take them long to finish me off. And as that’ll be the last of me, Miss Varney, maybe you’ll listen to one thing. We can’t all die a soldier’s death, in the roar and glory of battle, our friends about us, under the flag we love. No, not all! Some of us have orders for another kind of work, dare-devil, desperate work, the hazardous schemes of the Secret Service. We fight our battles alone, no comrades to cheer us on, ten thousand to one against us, death at every turn. If we win, we escape with our lives; if we lose, we are dragged out and butchered like dogs. No soldier’s grave, not even a trench with the rest of the boys—alone, despised, forgotten! These were my orders, Miss Varney; this is the death I die to-night, and I don’t want you to think for one moment that I am ashamed of it; no, not for one moment.”