“I did not know a woman could be so vindictive,” he said.

“Our army has killed two of her sons,” said the sergeant.  “To her we, like all the rest of our troops, are the men who killed them.”

“Perhaps that is so,” said Dick thoughtfully, as he remounted.

They rode beside the walk and out at the open gate.  Dick carried a silver whistle, upon which he blew a signal for the rest of his men to join them, and then he and the sergeant went slowly up the road.  He was deeply chagrined at the escape of the rifleman, and the curse of the woman lay heavily upon him.

“I don’t see how it was done,” he said.

“Nor I,” said the sergeant, shaking his head.

There was a sharp report, the undoubted whip-like crack of a rifle, and a man just behind, uttering a cry, held up a bleeding arm.  Dick had a lightning conviction that the bullet was intended for himself.  It was certain also that the shot had come from the house.

“Back with me, sergeant!” he exclaimed.  “We’ll get that fellow yet!”

They galloped back, sprang from their horses, and rushed in, followed by the original little troop that had entered, Dick shouting a direction to the others to remain outside.  The fierce little old woman was sitting as before by the table, knitting, and she had never appeared more the great lady.

“Once was enough,” she said, shooting him a glance of bitter contempt.

“But twice may succeed,” Dick said.  “Sergeant, take the men and go through all the house again.  Our friend with the rifle may not have had time to get back into his hidden lair.  I will remain here.”

The sergeant and his men went out and he heard their boots on the stairway and in the other rooms.  The window near him was still open and the perfume of the roses came in again, strangely thrilling, overpowering.  But something had awakened in Dick.  The sixth, and even the germ of a seventh sense, which may have been instinct, were up and alive.  He did not look again at the rose garden, nor did he listen any longer to the footsteps of his men.

He had concentrated all his faculties, the known, and the unknown, which may have been lying dormant in him, upon a single object.  He heard only the click of the knitting needles, and he saw only the small, strong hands moving swiftly back and forth.  They were very white, and they were firm like those of a young woman.  There were none of the heavy blue veins across the back that betoken age.

The hands fascinated him.  He stared at them, fairly pouring his gaze upon them.  They were beautiful, as the hands of a great lady should be kept, and it was all the more wonderful then that the right should have across the back of it a faint gray smudge, so tiny that only an eye like his, and a concentrated gaze like his, could have seen it.

He took four swift steps forward, seized the white hand in his and held it up.