Kate squeezed the hand still resting in her own, and drawing the long veil back over face, she walked silently with the puzzled spinster, unable to broach the theme she had at heart.  Merry spared her the torture of going at it obliquely.

“I have just been at the Spragues.  Poor dears, they are in dreadful distress.  Mrs. Sprague is preparing to go in search of the body, but Olympia won’t give in that Jack is killed.  She says that if he had been she certainly would have known it in Richmond, for there are couriers twice a day from the rebel outposts to the capital; that the Atterburys had taken special measures to learn the fate of the escaped prisoners; that, besides this, several young men in Richmond, who knew Jack well, had been sent down the peninsula with the prisoners, to befriend him in case he were retaken.”

“And Olympia believes that Jack is alive?”

“Yes, firmly.”

“Where does she think he is?”

“She believes that he is among a squad separated from the rest of the prisoners, near the Union lines.  It was asserted in Richmond that many had crossed the James River, and were making for the Dismal Swamp, or into Burnside’s lines in North Carolina.”

“Dear Miss Merry, I—­I—­think I won’t go in now,” Kate said, tremblingly.  “I must see Olympia.  Perhaps I can help them in the search for Jack, and you know there is no time to lose.  I shall come and see you all soon.”

She squeezed the astonished Merry’s hand, convulsively, and shot off, leaving the bewildered lady quite speechless, so speechless that, when she reached the stately presence of Aunt Pliny, she forgot the commissions she had been sent to execute, and was at once reviled by the parrot as “a no-account dawdler.”

Meanwhile, Kate, with wild, throbbing hope in her heart that kindled color in her pale cheeks and light in her weary eyes, sped away to the Spragues.  There was no tremor in the hand that raised the dragon-headed knocker, nor hesitancy in the voice that bade the servant say that “Miss Boone requested a few moments’ conversation with Miss Sprague.”

Olympia came presently into the reception-room, and the girls met with a warm embrace.

“Ah, Olympia, I have been made so—­so—­glad by what Merry tells me!  You—­do—­not believe that your brother is dead?” Her voice faltered, and Olympia, gazing at her fixedly, said: 

“No, I shall not believe Jack is dead until I see his body.  Poor mother, who believes the worst whenever we are out of her sight, has given up all but the faintest hope.  I shall not.  I know Jack so well.  I know that it would take a good deal to kill him, young and strong as he is.  Besides that, I know that the Atterburys would find means to let us know, if there were any certainty as to his fate.  Poor Jack!  It would be an unendurable calamity if he were to die before the monstrous calumnies that have been published about him are proved lies.”