At last came the new resolution,
"Worthy or unworthy, I've given my word to a better man and that settles
it."
The fight had become in her inflamed imagination the struggle between
good and evil. The younger man with his chivalrous boyish ideals was
God, Love, Light. The older with his iron will, his fierce ungovernable
passion, was the Devil, Lust and Darkness. She trembled with new terror
at the discovery that there was something elemental deep within her own
life that answered the challenge of this older voice with a strange
joyous daring.
She had just risen from her knees where she had prayed for strength to
fight and win this battle when the maid knocked on her door. She had
left the hospital and returned home for a week's rest, tottering on the
verge of a nervous collapse since her return from the meeting with Ned.
"A letter, Miss Betty," the maid said with a smile.
She tore the envelope with nervous dread. It bore no postmark and was
addressed in a strange hand.
Inside was another envelope in Ned's handwriting, and around it a sheet
of paper on which was scrawled,
"DEAR MISS WINTER: The bearer of this letter is a trusted spy of
both Governments. I have friends in Washington and in Richmond. In
Richmond I am supposed to betray the Washington Government.
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