Now the first proposition seems clearly contradictory.  The Doctor was not a Confederate, and I feel sure that he did not know that I was a Confederate spy.  I give up the first proposition.

Since one of the two is true, and the first is not, then the second must be the truth.  I must have played the spy so well that even Dr. Khayme had been deceived.

Yet I can remember no deceit in my mind.  I was a spy, and my business was deceit; yet in regard to the Doctor I feel sure that I was open and frank.  The second proposition, while possible, I reject, at least for a time.

Can I decide that neither of two opposite things can be true?  How absurd!  Yet I recall an utterance of the Doctor, “There is nothing false absolutely;” and I recall another, “To examine a question thoroughly, be not content with looking at two sides of it; look at three.”

Let me try again, then, and see if by any possibility there be a third alternative.  The first, namely, that the Doctor is a Confederate, is untrue; the second, namely, that I deceived him, is untrue:  what is a possible third?

I fail to see what else is possible ... wait ... let me put myself in the Doctor’s place.  Let me consider his antislavery notions and his invulnerability to deceit.  He sends me, as he thinks, into the Confederate lines as a Union spy.  Why?

Because he believes I am a Union spy.  Well, what does that show but that he is deceived?  The reasoning turns on itself.  It will not do.  Where is the trouble?  There is a way out, if I could but find it.

What is that third alternative?  Can it be that the Doctor knew I was a Confederate and wished to help me return to my people?  He was opposed to war, and would take no part in it; was he indifferent in regard to the success of the Federals?  No; he wished for the extinction of slavery.  Yet Captain Haskell was a Confederate, but he argued for a modification of slavery, and for gradual emancipation.

Could Dr. Khayme have had such, affection for me that he would do violence to his own sentiments for my sake?  Was he willing for me to go back to the Confederate army?  Perhaps one man more or fewer does not count.  Possibly he helped me for the purpose of doing me good, knowing that he was doing the Union cause no harm.

But would he not know that the information I should take to the Confederates would be worth many men?  He would be seriously injuring his cause.

Perhaps he made me promise not to use my information.  No; that could not be true.  He was above such conduct, and his affection for me was too sincere to admit the purpose of degrading me; neither would I have yielded.

And now I see other inconsistencies in all of these suppositions.  For the Doctor to know that I was a Confederate, and at the same time help me to act the Union spy, would be deceit on his part.  I am forced to admit that he knew my true character and that I knew he knew me.