He did so.  She bent her head in a courtly manner towards him, and then went on with her playing of Southern airs.

A moment later the rebel sergeant disappeared from some shrubbery a little beyond the parlor window, and chuckled, “The Yankee captain has found out that he can’t make either an ally or a sweetheart out of a Southern girl; but I suspicioned her a little last night.”

At two o’clock that night there was an almost imperceptible tap at Lane’s door.  He opened it noiselessly, and saw Suwanee with her finger on her lips.

“Carry your shoes in your hands,” she said, and then led the way down the stairs to the parlor window.  Again she whispered:  “The guard here is bribed,—­bribed by kindness.  He says I saved his life when he was wounded.  Steal through the shrubbery to the creek-road; continue down that, and you’ll find a guide.  Not a word.  Good-by.”

She gave her hand to the surgeon, whose honest eyes were moist with feeling, and then he dropped lightly to the ground.

“Suwanee,” began Lane.

“Hush!  Go.”

Again he raised her hand to his lips, again heard that same low, involuntary sob that had smote his heart the preceding night; and then followed the surgeon.  The guard stood out in the garden with his back towards them, as, like shadows, they glided away.

On the creek-road the old colored man who worked in the garden joined them, and led the way rapidly to the creek, where under some bushes a skiff with oars was moored.  Lane slipped twenty dollars into the old man’s hand, and then he and his companion pushed out into the sluggish current, and the surgeon took the oars and pulled quietly through the shadows of the overhanging foliage.  The continued quiet proved that their escape had not been discovered.  Food had been placed in the boat.  The stream led towards the Potomac.  With the dawn they concealed themselves, and slept during the day, travelling all the following night.  The next day they were so fortunate as to fall in with a Union scouting party, and so eventually reached Washington; but the effort in riding produced serious symptoms in Lane’s wound, and he was again doomed to quiet weeks of convalescence, as has already been intimated to the reader.

When Mrs. Barkdale and Roberta came down the next morning they found Suwanee in the breakfast room, fuming with apparent irritability.

“Here is that Lieutenant Macklin again,” she said, “and he is very impatient, saying that his orders are imperative, and that he is needed on some special duty.  His orders are to convey the prisoners to the nearest railroad station, and then report for some active service.  From all I can gather it is feared that the Yankees propose an attack on Richmond, now that General Lee is away.”

“It’s strange that Captain Lane and the surgeon don’t come down,” Roberta remarked.  “I truly wish, however, that we had not to meet them again.”