"Ho!" exclaimed the man, softly, with pitying amus.e.m.e.nt. "Certainly, I understand you would try to do so. But, my dear madam, you would find yourself very much mistaken. Suppose, now, we should let you through our lines. You"d be between two fires. You"d still have to get into the rebel lines. You don"t know what you"re undertaking."
She smiled wistfully.
"I"m undertaking to get to my husband."
"Yes, yes," said the officer, pulling his handkerchief from between two bra.s.s b.u.t.tons of his double-breasted coat and wiping his brow. She did not notice that he made this motion purely as a cover for the searching glance which he suddenly gave her from head to foot. "Yes," he continued, "but you don"t know what it is, ma"am. After you get through the _other_ lines, what are you going to do _then_? There"s a perfect reign of terror over there. I wouldn"t let a lady relative of mine take such risks for thousands of dollars. I don"t think your husband ought to thank me for giving you a pa.s.s. You say he"s a Union man; why don"t he come to you?"
Tears leaped into the applicant"s eyes.
"He"s become too sick to travel," she said.
"Lately?"
"Yes, sir."
"I thought you said you hadn"t heard from him for months." The officer looked at her with narrowed eyes.
"I said I hadn"t had a letter from him." The speaker blushed to find her veracity on trial. She bit her lip, and added, with perceptible tremor: "I got one lately from his physician."
"How did you get it?"
"What, sir?"
"Now, madam, you know what I asked you, don"t you?"
"Yes, sir."
"Yes. Well, I"d like you to answer."
"I found it, three mornings ago, under the front door of the house where I live with my mother and my little girl."
"Who put it there?"
"I do not know."
The officer looked her steadily in the eyes. They were blue. His own dropped.
"You ought to have brought that letter with you, ma"am," he said, looking up again; "don"t you see how valuable it would be to you?"
"I did bring it," she replied, with alacrity, rummaged a moment in a skirt-pocket, and brought it out. The officer received it and read the superscription audibly.
""Mrs. John H----." Are you Mrs. John H----?"
"That is not the envelope it was in," she replied. "It was not directed at all. I put it into that envelope merely to preserve it. That"s the envelope of a different letter,--a letter from my mother."
"Are you Mrs. John H----?" asked her questioner again. She had turned partly aside and was looking across the apartment and out through a window. He spoke once more. "Is this your name?"
"What, sir?"
He smiled cynically.
"Please don"t do that again, madam."
She blushed down into the collar of her dress.
"That is my name, sir."
The man put the missive to his nose, snuffed it softly, and looked amused, yet displeased.
"Mrs. H----, did you notice just a faint smell of--garlic--about this--?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, I have no less than three or four others with the very same odor." He smiled on. "And so, no doubt, we are both of the same private opinion that the bearer of this letter was--who, Mrs. H----?"
Mrs. H---- frequently by turns raised her eyes honestly to her questioner"s and dropped them to where, in her lap, the fingers of one hand fumbled with a lone wedding-ring on the other, while she said:--
"Do you think, sir, if you were in my place you would like to give the name of the person you thought had risked his life to bring you word that your husband--your wife--was very ill, and needed your presence?
Would you like to do it?"
The officer looked severe.
"Don"t you know perfectly well that wasn"t his princ.i.p.al errand inside our lines?"
"No."
"No!" echoed the man; "and you don"t know perfectly well, I suppose, that he"s been shot at along this line times enough to have turned his hair white? Or that he crossed the river for the third time last night, loaded down with musket-caps for the rebels?"
"No."
"But you must admit you know a certain person, wherever he may be, or whatever he may be doing, named Raphael Ristofalo?"
"I do not."
The officer smiled again.
"Yes, I see. That is to say, you don"t _admit_ it. And you don"t deny it."
The reply came more slowly:--
"I do not."
"Well, now, Mrs. H----, I"ve given you a pretty long audience. I"ll tell you what I"ll do. But do you please tell me, first, you affirm on your word of honor that your name is really Mrs. H----; that you are no spy, and have had no voluntary communication with any, and that you are a true and sincere Union woman."
"I affirm it all."
"Well, then, come in to-morrow at this hour, and if I am going to give you a pa.s.s at all I"ll give it to you then. Here, here"s your letter."