"Captain Cary, you're a brave man--and one of the best scouts in the Confederate army. I regret this happening--more than I can say." The Southerner shrugged his shoulders. His Northern captor asked: "Are you carrying dispatches?" "No." "Any other papers?--of any kind?" No answer came, and he added sternly: "It is quite useless to refuse. Give them to me." He held out his hand, but his captive only looked him in the eyes; and the answer, though spoken in an undertone, held a world of quiet meaning: "You can take it--_afterwards_." The Federal officer bit his lip; and yet he could not, would not, be denied. His request became demand, backed by authority and the right of might, till Virgie broke in, in a piping voice of indignation: "You can't have it! It's mine! My pass to Richmon'--from Gen'ral Lee." Morrison turned slowly from the little rebel to the man. "Is this true?" he asked. The Southerner flushed, and for reply produced the rumpled paper from his boot leg, and handed it over without a word. 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. The one moved forward toward a seat, staggering as he walked, and catching himself on the table's edge, while the other's hand went out to lend him aid; but the Southerner waved him off. "Thank you," he said, as he sank into a chair. "I don't _want_ help--from _you_!" "Why not?" asked Morrison. "Because," said Cary, in sullen anger, "I don't ask quarter, nor aid, from a man who frightens children." The Northerner's chin went up; and when he replied his voice was trembling; not in passion, but with a deeper, finer something which had gripped his admiration for the courage of a child: