“I beg you not to feel disturbed,—­” he began.

“Will you set me down at Louisville?”

“Madam, I can not.”

“You have not been hampered with extraordinary orders.  You have just said, the carte blanche is in your hands.”

“I have no stricter orders at any time than those I take from my own conscience, Madam.  I must act for your own good as well as for that of others.”

Her lip curled now.  “Then not even this country is free!  Even here there are secret tribunals.  Even here there are hired bravos.”

“Ah, Madam, please, not that!  I beg of you—­”

“Excellently kind of you all, to care so tenderly for me—­and yourselves!  I, only a woman, living openly, with ill will for none, paying ray own way, violating no law of the land—­”

“Your words are very bitter, Madam.”

“The more bitter because they are true.  You will release me then at Cairo, below?”

“I can not promise, Madam.  You would be back in Washington by the first boats and trains.”

“So, the plot runs yet further?  Perhaps you do not stop this side the outer ways of the Mississippi?  Say, St. Louis, New Orleans?”

“Perhaps even beyond those points,” he rejoined grimly.  “I make no promises, since you yourself make none.”

“What are your plans, out there, beyond?”

“You ask it frankly, and with equal frankness I say I do not know.  Indeed, I am not fully advised in all this matter.  It was imperative to get you out of Washington, and if so, it is equally imperative to keep you out of Washington.  At least for a time I am obliged to construe my carte blanche in that way, my dear lady.  And as I say, my conscience is my strictest officer.”

“Yes,” she said, studying his face calmly with her steady dark eyes.

It was a face sensitive, although bony and lined; stern, though its owner still was young.  She noticed the reddish hair and beard, the florid skin, the blue eye set deep—­a fighting eye, yet that of a visionary.

“You are a fanatic,” she said.

“That is true.  You, yourself, are of my own kind.  You would kill me without tremor, if you had orders, and I—­”

“You would do as much!”

“You are of my kind, Madam.  Yes; we both take orders from our own souls.  And that we think alike in many ways I am already sure.”

“None the less—­”

“None the less, I can not agree to set you down at Cairo, or at any intermediate point.  I will only give my promise in return for your own parole.  That, I would take as quickly as though it were the word of any officer; but you do not give it.”

“No, I do not.  I am my own mistress.  I am going to escape as soon as I can.”

He touched his cap in salute.  “Very well, then.  I flattered myself we had done well together thus far—­you have made it easy.  But now—­no, no, I will not say it.  I would rather see you defiant than to have you weaken.  I love courage, and you have it.  That will carry you through.  It will keep you clean and safe as well.”