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diff --git a/old/clrnc10.txt b/old/clrnc10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f1a3361 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/clrnc10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6091 @@ +****The Project Gutenberg Etext of Clarence, by Bret Harte**** +#32 in our series by Bret Harte + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by Donald Lainson, charlie@idirect.com. + + + + + +CLARENCE + +by Bret Harte + + + + +PART I. + + + +CHAPTER I. + + + +As Clarence Brant, President of the Robles Land Company, and +husband of the rich widow of John Peyton, of the Robles Ranche, +mingled with the outgoing audience of the Cosmopolitan Theatre, at +San Francisco, he elicited the usual smiling nods and recognition +due to his good looks and good fortune. But as he hurriedly +slipped through the still lingering winter's rain into the smart +coupe that was awaiting him, and gave the order "Home," the word +struck him with a peculiarly ironical significance. His home was a +handsome one, and lacked nothing in appointment and comfort, but he +had gone to the theatre to evade its hollow loneliness. Nor was it +because his wife was not there, for he had a miserable consciousness +that her temporary absence had nothing to do with his homelessness. +The distraction of the theatre over, that dull, vague, but aching +sense of loneliness which was daily growing upon him returned with +greater vigor. + +He leaned back in the coupe and gloomily reflected. + +He had been married scarcely a year, yet even in the illusions of +the honeymoon the woman, older than himself, and the widow of his +old patron, had half unconsciously reasserted herself, and slipped +back into the domination of her old position. It was at first +pleasant enough,--this half-maternal protectorate which is apt to +mingle even with the affections of younger women,--and Clarence, in +his easy, half-feminine intuition of the sex, yielded, as the strong +are apt to yield, through the very consciousness of their own +superiority. But this is a quality the weaker are not apt to +recognize, and the woman who has once tasted equal power with her +husband not only does not easily relegate it, but even makes its +continuance a test of the affections. The usual triumphant feminine +conclusion, "Then you no longer love me," had in Clarence’s brief +experience gone even further and reached its inscrutable climax, +"Then I no longer love you," although shown only in a momentary +hardening of the eye and voice. And added to this was his sudden, +but confused remembrance that he had seen that eye and heard that +voice in marital altercation during Judge Peyton’s life, and that he +himself, her boy partisan, had sympathized with her. Yet, strange +to say, this had given him more pain than her occasional other +reversions to the past--to her old suspicious of him when he was a +youthful protege of her husband and a presumed suitor of her adopted +daughter Susy. High natures are more apt to forgive wrong done to +themselves than any abstract injustice. And her capricious tyranny +over her dependents and servants, or an unreasoning enmity to a +neighbor or friend, outraged his finer sense more than her own +misconception of himself. Nor did he dream that this was a thing +most women seldom understand, or, understanding, ever forgive. + +The coupe rattled over the stones or swirled through the muddy +pools of the main thoroughfares. Newspaper and telegraphic offices +were still brilliantly lit, and crowds were gathered among the +bulletin boards. He knew that news had arrived from Washington +that evening of the first active outbreaks of secession, and that +the city was breathless with excitement. Had he not just come from +the theatre, where certain insignificant allusions in the play had +been suddenly caught up and cheered or hissed by hitherto unknown +partisans, to the dumb astonishment of a majority of the audience +comfortably settled to money-getting and their own affairs alone? +Had he not applauded, albeit half-scornfully, the pretty actress-- +his old playmate Susy--who had audaciously and all incongruously +waved the American flag in their faces? Yes! he had known it; had +lived for the last few weeks in an atmosphere electrically +surcharged with it--and yet it had chiefly affected him in his +personal homelessness. For his wife was a Southerner, a born +slaveholder, and a secessionist, whose noted prejudices to the +North had even outrun her late husband's politics. At first the +piquancy and recklessness of her opinionative speech amused him as +part of her characteristic flavor, or as a lingering youthfulness +which the maturer intellect always pardons. He had never taken her +politics seriously--why should he? With her head on his shoulder +he had listened to her extravagant diatribes against the North. He +had forgiven her outrageous indictment of his caste and his +associates for the sake of the imperious but handsome lips that +uttered it. But when he was compelled to listen to her words +echoed and repeated by her friends and family; when he found that +with the clannishness of her race she had drawn closer to them in +this controversy,--that she depended upon them for her intelligence +and information rather than upon him,--he had awakened to the +reality of his situation. He had borne the allusions of her +brother, whose old scorn for his dependent childhood had been +embittered by his sister's marriage and was now scarcely concealed. +Yet, while he had never altered his own political faith and social +creed in this antagonistic atmosphere, he had often wondered, with +his old conscientiousness and characteristic self-abnegation, +whether his own political convictions were not merely a revulsion +from his domestic tyranny and alien surroundings. + +In the midst of this gloomy retrospect the coupe stopped with a +jerk before his own house. The door was quickly opened by a +servant, who appeared to be awaiting him. + +"Some one to see you in the library, sir," said the man, "and"-- +He hesitated and looked towards the coupe. + +"Well?" said Clarence impatiently. + +"He said, sir, as how you were not to send away the carriage." + +"Indeed, and who is it?" demanded Clarence sharply. + +"Mr. Hooker. He said I was to say Jim Hooker." + +The momentary annoyance in Clarence's face changed to a look of +reflective curiosity. + +"He said he knew you were at the theatre, and he would wait until +you came home," continued the man, dubiously watching his master's +face. "He don't know you've come in, sir, and--and I can easily +get rid of him." + +"No matter now. I'll see him, and," added Clarence, with a faint +smile, "let the carriage wait." + +Yet, as he turned towards the library he was by no means certain +that an interview with the old associate of his boyhood under Judge +Peyton's guardianship would divert his mind. Yet he let no trace +of his doubts nor of his past gloom show in his face as he entered +the room. + +Mr. Hooker was apparently examining the elegant furniture and +luxurious accommodation with his usual resentful enviousness. +Clarence had got a "soft thing." That it was more or less the +result of his "artfulness," and that he was unduly "puffed up" by +it, was, in Hooker's characteristic reasoning, equally clear. As +his host smilingly advanced with outstretched hand, Mr. Hooker's +efforts to assume a proper abstraction of manner and contemptuous +indifference to Clarence's surroundings which should wound his +vanity ended in his lolling back at full length in the chair with +his eyes on the ceiling. But, remembering suddenly that he was +really the bearer of a message to Clarence, it struck him that his +supine position was, from a theatrical view-point, infelicitous. +In his experiences of the stage he had never delivered a message in +that way. He rose awkwardly to his feet. + +"It was so good of you to wait," said Clarence courteously. + +"Saw you in the theatre," said Hooker brusquely. "Third row in +parquet. Susy said it was you, and had suthin' to say to you. +Suthin' you ought to know," he continued, with a slight return of +his old mystery of manner which Clarence so well remembered. "You +saw HER--she fetched the house with that flag business, eh? She +knows which way the cat is going to jump, you bet. I tell you, for +all the blowing of these secessionists, the Union's goin' to pay! +Yes, sir!" He stopped, glanced round the handsome room, and added +darkly, "Mebbee better than this." + +With the memory of Hooker's characteristic fondness for mystery +still in his mind, Clarence overlooked the innuendo, and said +smilingly,-- + +"Why didn't you bring Mrs. Hooker here? I should have been honored +with her company." + +Mr. Hooker frowned slightly at this seeming levity. + +"Never goes out after a performance. Nervous exhaustion. Left her +at our rooms in Market Street. We can drive there in ten minutes. +That's why I asked to have the carriage wait." + +Clarence hesitated. Without caring in the least to renew the +acquaintance of his old playmate and sweetheart, a meeting that +night in some vague way suggested to him a providential diversion. +Nor was he deceived by any gravity in the message. With his +remembrance of Susy's theatrical tendencies, he was quite prepared +for any capricious futile extravagance. + +"You are sure we will not disturb her?" he said politely. + +"No." + +Clarence led the way to the carriage. If Mr. Hooker expected him +during the journey to try to divine the purport of Susy's message +he was disappointed. His companion did not allude to it. Possibly +looking upon it as a combined theatrical performance, Clarence +preferred to wait for Susy as the better actor. The carriage +rolled rapidly through the now deserted streets, and at last, under +the directions of Mr. Hooker, who was leaning half out of the +window, it drew up at a middle-class restaurant, above whose still +lit and steaming windows were some ostentatiously public apartments, +accessible from a side entrance. As they ascended the staircase +together, it became evident that Mr. Hooker was scarcely more at his +ease in the character of host than he had been as guest. He stared +gloomily at a descending visitor, grunted audibly at a waiter in the +passage, and stopped before a door, where a recently deposited tray +displayed the half-eaten carcase of a fowl, an empty champagne +bottle, two half-filled glasses, and a faded bouquet. The whole +passage was redolent with a singular blending of damp cooking, stale +cigarette smoke, and patchouli. + +Putting the tray aside with his foot, Mr. Hooker opened the door +hesitatingly and peered into the room, muttered a few indistinct +words, which were followed by a rapid rustling of skirts, and then, +with his hand still on the door-knob, turning to Clarence, who had +discreetly halted on the threshold, flung the door open theatrically +and bade him enter. + +"She is somewhere in the suite," he added, with a large wave of the +hand towards a door that was still oscillating. "Be here in a +minit." + +Clarence took in the apartment with a quiet glance. Its furniture +had the frayed and discolored splendors of a public parlor which +had been privately used and maltreated; there were stains in the +large medallioned carpet; the gilded veneer had been chipped from a +heavy centre table, showing the rough, white deal beneath, which +gave it the appearance of a stage "property;" the walls, paneled +with gilt-framed mirrors, reflected every domestic detail or +private relaxation with shameless publicity. A damp waterproof, +shawl, and open newspaper were lying across the once brilliant +sofa; a powder-puff, a plate of fruit, and a play-book were on the +centre table, and on the marble-topped sideboard was Mr. Hooker's +second-best hat, with a soiled collar, evidently but lately +exchanged for the one he had on, peeping over its brim. The whole +apartment seemed to mingle the furtive disclosures of the dressing- +room with the open ostentations of the stage, with even a slight +suggestion of the auditorium in a few scattered programmes on the +floor and chairs. + +The inner door opened again with a slight theatrical start, and +Susy, in an elaborate dressing-gown, moved languidly into the room. +She apparently had not had time to change her underskirt, for there +was the dust of the stage on its delicate lace edging, as she threw +herself into an armchair and crossed her pretty slippered feet +before her. Her face was pale, its pallor incautiously increased +by powder; and as Clarence looked at its still youthful, charming +outline, he was not perhaps sorry that the exquisite pink and white +skin beneath, which he had once kissed, was hidden from that +awakened recollection. Yet there was little trace of the girlish +Susy in the pretty, but prematurely jaded, actress before him, and +he felt momentarily relieved. It was her youth and freshness +appealing to his own youth and imagination that he had loved--not +HER. Yet as she greeted him with a slight exaggeration of glance, +voice, and manner, he remembered that even as a girl she was an +actress. + +Nothing of this, however, was in his voice and manner as he gently +thanked her for the opportunity of meeting her again. And he was +frank, for the diversion he had expected he had found; he even was +conscious of thinking more kindly of his wife who had supplanted +her. + +"I told Jim he must fetch you if he had to carry you," she said, +striking the palm of her hand with her fan, and glancing at her +husband. "I reckon he guessed WHY, though I didn't tell him--I +don't tell Jim EVERYTHING." + +Here Jim rose, and looking at his watch, "guessed he'd run over to +the Lick House and get some cigars." If he was acting upon some +hint from his wife, his simulation was so badly done that Clarence +felt his first sense of uneasiness. But as Hooker closed the door +awkwardly and unostentatiously behind him, Clarence smilingly said +he had waited to hear the message from her own lips. + +"Jim only knows what he's heard outside: the talk of men, you +know,--and he hears a good deal of that--more, perhaps, than YOU +do. It was that which put me up to finding out the truth. And I +didn't rest till I did. I'm not to be fooled, Clarence,--you don't +mind my calling you Clarence now we're both married and done for,-- +and I'm not the kind to be fooled by anybody from the Cow counties-- +and that's the Robles Ranche. I'm a Southern woman myself from +Missouri, but I'm for the Union first, last, and all the time, and +I call myself a match for any lazy, dawdling, lash-swinging +slaveholder and slaveholderess--whether they're mixed blood, Heaven +only knows, or what--or their friends or relations, or the dirty +half-Spanish grandees and their mixed half-nigger peons who truckle +to them. You bet!" + +His blood had stirred quickly at the mention of the Robles Ranche, +but the rest of Susy's speech was too much in the vein of her old +extravagance to touch him seriously. He found himself only +considering how strange it was that the old petulance and +impulsiveness of her girlhood were actually bringing back with them +her pink cheeks and brilliant eyes. + +"You surely didn't ask Jim to bring me here," he said smilingly, +"to tell me that Mrs. Peyton"--he corrected himself hastily as a +malicious sparkle came into Susy's blue eyes--"that my wife was a +Southern woman, and probably sympathized with her class? Well, I +don't know that I should blame her for that any more than she +should blame me for being a Northern man and a Unionist." + +"And she doesn't blame you?" asked Susy sneeringly. + +The color came slightly to Clarence's cheek, but before he could +reply the actress added,-- + +"No, she prefers to use you!" + +"I don't think I understand you," said Clarence, rising coldly. + +"No, you don't understand HER!" retorted Susy sharply. "Look here, +Clarence Brant, you're right; I didn't ask you here to tell you-- +what you and everybody knows--that your wife is a Southerner. I +didn't ask you here to tell you what everybody suspects--that she +turns you round her little finger. But I did ask you here to tell +you what nobody, not even you, suspects--but what I know!--and that +is that she's a TRAITOR--and more, a SPY!--and that I've only got +to say the word, or send that man Jim to say the word, to have her +dragged out of her Copperhead den at Robles Ranche and shut up in +Fort Alcatraz this very night!" + +Still with the pink glowing in her rounding cheek, and eyes snapping +like splintered sapphires, she rose to her feet, with her pretty +shoulders lifted, her small hands and white teeth both tightly +clenched, and took a step towards him. Even in her attitude there +was a reminiscence of her willful childhood, although still blended +with the provincial actress whom he had seen on the stage only an +hour ago. Thoroughly alarmed at her threat, in his efforts to +conceal his feelings he was not above a weak retaliation. Stepping +back, he affected to regard her with a critical admiration that was +only half simulated, and said with a smile,-- + +"Very well done--but you have forgotten the flag." + +She did not flinch. Rather accepting the sarcasm as a tribute to +her art, she went on with increasing exaggeration: "No, it is YOU +who have forgotten the flag--forgotten your country, your people, +your manhood--everything for that high-toned, double-dyed old spy +and traitress! For while you are standing here, your wife is +gathering under her roof at Robles a gang of spies and traitors like +herself--secession leaders and their bloated, drunken 'chivalry'! +Yes, you may smile your superior smile, but I tell you, Clarence +Brant, that with all your smartness and book learning you know no +more of what goes on around you than a child. But others do! This +conspiracy is known to the government, the Federal officers have +been warned; General Sumner has been sent out here-- and his first +act was to change the command at Fort Alcatraz, and send your wife's +Southern friend--Captain Pinckney--to the right about! Yes-- +everything is known but ONE thing, and that is WHERE and HOW this +precious crew meet! That I alone know, and that I've told you!" + +"And I suppose," said Clarence, with an unchanged smile, "that this +valuable information came from your husband--my old friend, Jim +Hooker?" + +"No," she answered sharply, "it comes from Cencho--one of your own +peons--who is more true to you and the old Rancho than YOU have +ever been. He saw what was going on, and came to me, to warn you!" + +"But why not to me directly?" asked Clarence, with affected +incredulity. + +"Ask him!" she said viciously. "Perhaps he didn't want to warn the +master against the mistress. Perhaps he thought WE are still +friends. Perhaps"--she hesitated with a lower voice and a forced +smile--"perhaps he used to see us together in the old times." + +"Very likely," said Clarence quietly. "And for the sake of those +old times, Susy," he went on, with a singular gentleness that was +quite distinct from his paling face and set eyes, "I am going to +forget all that you have just said of me and mine, in all the old +willfulness and impatience that I see you still keep--with all your +old prettiness." He took his hat from the table and gravely held +out his hand. + +She was frightened for a moment with his impassive abstraction. In +the old days she had known it--had believed it was his dogged +"obstinacy"--but she knew the hopelessness of opposing it. Yet +with feminine persistency she again threw herself against it, as +against a wall. + +"You don't believe me! Well, go and see for yourself. They are at +Robles NOW. If you catch the early morning stage at Santa Clara +you will come upon them before they disperse. Dare you try it?" + +"Whatever I do," he returned smilingly, "I shall always be grateful +to you for giving me this opportunity of seeing you again AS YOU +WERE. Make my excuses to your husband. Good-night." + +"Clarence!" + +But he had already closed the door behind him. His face did not +relax its expression nor change as he looked again at the tray with +its broken viands before the door, the worn, stained hall carpet, or +the waiter who shuffled past him. He was apparently as critically +conscious of them and of the close odors of the hall, and the +atmosphere of listless decay and faded extravagance around him, as +before the interview. But if the woman he had just parted from had +watched him she would have supposed he still utterly disbelieved her +story. Yet he was conscious that all that he saw was a part of his +degradation, for he had believed every word she had uttered. +Through all her extravagance, envy, and revengefulness he saw the +central truth--that he had been deceived--not by his wife, but by +himself! He had suspected all this before. This was what had been +really troubling him--this was what he had put aside, rather than +his faith, not in her, but in his ideal. He remembered letters that +had passed between her and Captain Pinckney--letters that she had +openly sent to notorious Southern leaders; her nervous anxiety to +remain at the Rancho; the innuendoes and significant glances of +friends which he had put aside--as he had this woman's message! +Susy had told him nothing new of his wife--but the truth of HIMSELF! +And the revelation came from people who he was conscious were the +inferiors of himself and his wife. To an independent, proud, and +self-made man it was the culminating stroke. + +In the same abstracted voice he told the coachman to drive home. +The return seemed interminable--though he never shifted his +position. Yet when he drew up at his own door and looked at his +watch he found he had been absent only half an hour. Only half an +hour! As he entered the house he turned with the same abstraction +towards a mirror in the hall, as if he expected to see some outward +and visible change in himself in that time. Dismissing his servants +to bed, he went into his dressing-room, completely changed his +attire, put on a pair of long riding-boots, and throwing a serape +over his shoulders, paused a moment, took a pair of small "Derringer" +pistols from a box, put them in his pockets, and then slipped +cautiously down the staircase. A lack of confidence in his own +domestics had invaded him for the first time. The lights were out. +He silently opened the door and was in the street. + +He walked hastily a few squares to a livery stable whose proprietor +he knew. His first inquiry was for one "Redskin," a particular +horse; the second for its proprietor. Happily both were in. The +proprietor asked no question of a customer of Clarence's condition. +The horse, half Spanish, powerful and irascible, was quickly +saddled. As Clarence mounted, the man in an impulse of sociability +said,-- + +"Saw you at the theatre to-night, sir." + +"Ah," returned Clarence, quietly gathering up the reins. + +"Rather a smart trick of that woman with the flag," he went on +tentatively. Then, with a possible doubt of his customer's +politics, he added with a forced smile, "I reckon it's all party +fuss, though; there ain't any real danger." + +But fast as Clarence might ride the words lingered in his ears. He +saw through the man's hesitation; he, too, had probably heard that +Clarence Brant weakly sympathized with his wife's sentiments, and +dared not speak fully. And he understood the cowardly suggestion +that there was "no real danger." It had been Clarence's one +fallacy. He had believed the public excitement was only a +temporary outbreak of partisan feeling, soon to subside. Even now +he was conscious that he was less doubtful of the integrity of the +Union than of his own household. It was not the devotion of the +patriot, but the indignation of an outraged husband, that was +spurring him on. + +He knew that if he reached Woodville by five o'clock he could get +ferried across the bay at the Embarcadero, and catch the down coach +to Fair Plains, whence he could ride to the Rancho. As the coach +did not connect directly with San Francisco, the chance of his +surprising them was greater. Once clear of the city outskirts, he +bullied Redskin into irascible speed, and plunged into the rainy +darkness of the highroad. The way was familiar. For a while he +was content to feel the buffeting, caused by his rapid pace, of +wind and rain against his depressed head and shoulders in a sheer +brutal sense of opposition and power, or to relieve his pent-up +excitement by dashing through overflowed gullies in the road or +across the quaggy, sodden edges of meadowland, until he had +controlled Redskin's rebellious extravagance into a long steady +stride. Then he raised his head and straightened himself on the +saddle, to think. But to no purpose. He had no plan; everything +would depend upon the situation; the thought of forestalling any +action of the conspirators, by warning or calling in the aid of the +authorities, for an instant crossed his mind, but was as instantly +dismissed. He had but an instinct--to see with his own eyes what +his reason told him was true. Day was breaking through drifting +scud and pewter-colored clouds as he reached Woodville ferry, +checkered with splashes of the soil and the spume of his horse, +from whose neck and flanks the sweat rolled like lather. Yet he +was not conscious how intent had been his purpose until he felt a +sudden instinctive shock on seeing that the ferryboat was gone. +For an instant his wonderful self-possession abandoned him; he +could only gaze vacantly at the leaden-colored bay, without a +thought or expedient. But in another moment he saw that the boat +was returning from the distance. Had he lost his only chance? He +glanced hurriedly at his watch; he had come more quickly than he +imagined; there would still be time. He beckoned impatiently to +the ferryman; the boat--a ship's pinnace, with two men in it--crept +in with exasperating slowness. At last the two rowers suddenly +leaped ashore. + +"Ye might have come before, with the other passenger. We don't +reckon to run lightnin' trips on this ferry." + +But Clarence was himself again. "Twenty dollars for two more oars +in that boat," he said quietly, "and fifty if you get me over in +time to catch the down stage." + +The man glanced at Clarence's eyes. "Run up and rouse out Jake and +Sam," he said to the other boatman; then more leisurely, gazing at +his customer's travel-stained equipment, he said, "There must have +been a heap o' passengers got left by last night's boat. You're +the second man that took this route in a hurry." + +At any other time the coincidence might have struck Clarence. But +he only answered curtly, "Unless we are under way in ten minutes +you will find I am NOT the second man, and that our bargain's off." + +But here two men emerged from the shanty beside the ferryhouse, and +tumbled sleepily into the boat. Clarence seized an extra pair of +sculls that were standing against the shed, and threw them into the +stern. "I don't mind taking a hand myself for exercise," he said +quietly. + +The ferryman glanced again at Clarence's travel-worn figure and +determined eyes with mingled approval and surprise. He lingered a +moment with his oars lifted, looking at his passenger. "It ain't +no business o' mine, young man," he said deliberately, "but I +reckon you understand me when I say that I've just taken another +man over there." + +"I do," said Clarence impatiently. + +"And you still want to go?" + +"Certainly," replied Clarence, with a cold stare, taking up his +oars. + +The man shrugged his shoulders, bent himself for the stroke, and +the boat sprung forward. The others rowed strongly and rapidly, +the tough ashen blades springing like steel from the water, the +heavy boat seeming to leap in successive bounds until they were +fairly beyond the curving inshore current and clearing the placid, +misty surface of the bay. Clarence did not speak, but bent +abstractedly over his oar; the ferryman and his crew rowed in equal +panting silence; a few startled ducks whirred before them, but +dropped again to rest. In half an hour they were at the +Embarcadero. The time was fairly up. Clarence's eyes were eagerly +bent for the first appearance of the stage-coach around the little +promontory; the ferryman was as eagerly scanning the bare, empty +street of the still sleeping settlement. + +"I don't see him anywhere," said the ferryman with a glance, half +of astonishment and half of curiosity, at his solitary passenger. + +"See whom?" asked Clarence carelessly, as he handed the man his +promised fee. + +"The other man I ferried over to catch the stage. He must have +gone on without waiting. You're in luck, young fellow!" + +"I don't understand you," said Clarence impatiently. "What has +your previous passenger to do with me?" + +"Well, I reckon you know best. He's the kind of man, gin'rally +speaking, that other men, in a pow'ful hurry, don't care to meet-- +and, az a rule, don't FOLLER arter. It's gin'rally the other way." + +"What do you mean?" inquired Clarence sternly. "Of whom are you +speaking?" + +"The Chief of Police of San Francisco!" + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +The laugh that instinctively broke from Clarence's lips was so +sincere and unaffected that the man was disconcerted, and at last +joined in it, a little shamefacedly. The grotesque blunder of +being taken as a fugitive from justice relieved Clarence's mind +from its acute tension,--he was momentarily diverted,--and it was +not until the boatman had departed, and he was again alone, that it +seemed to have any collateral significance. Then an uneasy +recollection of Susy's threat that she had the power to put his +wife in Fort Alcatraz came across him. Could she have already +warned the municipal authorities and this man? But he quickly +remembered that any action from such a warning could only have been +taken by the United States Marshal, and not by a civic official, +and dismissed the idea. + +Nevertheless, when the stage with its half-spent lamps still +burning dimly against the morning light swept round the curve and +rolled heavily up to the rude shanty which served as coach-office, +he became watchful. A single yawning individual in its doorway +received a few letters and parcels, but Clarence was evidently the +ONLY waiting passenger. Any hope that he might have entertained +that his mysterious predecessor would emerge from some seclusion at +that moment was disappointed. As he entered the coach he made a +rapid survey of his fellow-travelers, but satisfied himself that +the stranger was not among them. They were mainly small traders or +farmers, a miner or two, and apparently a Spanish-American of +better degree and personality. Possibly the circumstance that men +of this class usually preferred to travel on horseback and were +rarely seen in public conveyances attracted his attention, and +their eyes met more than once in mutual curiosity. Presently +Clarence addressed a remark to the stranger in Spanish; he replied +fluently and courteously, but at the next stopping-place he asked a +question of the expressman in an unmistakable Missouri accent. +Clarence's curiosity was satisfied; he was evidently one of those +early American settlers who had been so long domiciled in Southern +California as to adopt the speech as well as the habiliments of the +Spaniard. + +The conversation fell upon the political news of the previous +night, or rather seemed to be lazily continued from some previous, +more excited discussion, in which one of the contestants--a red- +bearded miner--had subsided into an occasional growl of surly +dissent. It struck Clarence that the Missourian had been an amused +auditor and even, judging from a twinkle in his eye, a mischievous +instigator of the controversy. He was not surprised, therefore, +when the man turned to him with a certain courtesy and said,-- + +"And what, sir, is the political feeling in YOUR district?" + +But Clarence was in no mood to be drawn out, and replied, almost +curtly, that as he had come only from San Francisco, they were +probably as well informed on that subject as himself. A quick and +searching glance from the stranger's eye made him regret his +answer, but in the silence that ensued the red-bearded miner, +evidently still rankling at heart, saw his opportunity. Slapping +his huge hands on his knees, and leaning far forward until he +seemed to plunge his flaming beard, like a firebrand, into the +controversy, he said grimly,-- + +"Well, I kin tell you, gen'l'men, THIS. It ain't goin' to be no +matter wot's the POLITICAL FEELING here or thar--it ain't goin' to +be no matter wot's the State's rights and wot's Fed'ral rights--it +ain't goin' to be no question whether the gov'ment's got the right +to relieve its own soldiers that those Secesh is besieging in Fort +Sumter or whether they haven't--but the first gun that's fired at +the flag blows the chains off every d--n nigger south of Mason and +Dixon's line! You hear me! I'm shoutin'! And whether you call +yourselves 'Secesh' or 'Union' or 'Copperhead' or 'Peace men,' +you've got to face it!" + +There was an angry start in one or two of the seats; one man caught +at the swinging side-strap and half rose, a husky voice began, +"It's a d----d"--and then all as suddenly subsided. Every eye was +turned to an insignificant figure in the back seat. It was a +woman, holding a child on her lap, and gazing out of the window +with her sex's profound unconcern in politics. Clarence understood +the rude chivalry of the road well enough to comprehend that this +unconscious but omnipotent figure had more than once that day +controlled the passions of the disputants. They dropped back +weakly to their seats, and their mutterings rolled off in the +rattle of the wheels. Clarence glanced at the Missourian; he was +regarding the red-bearded miner with a singular curiosity. + +The rain had ceased, but the afternoon shadows were deepening when +they at last reached Fair Plains, where Clarence expected to take +horse to the Rancho. He was astonished, however, to learn that all +the horses in the stable were engaged, but remembering that some of +his own stock were in pasturage with a tenant at Fair Plains, and +that he should probably have a better selection, he turned his +steps thither. Passing out of the stable-yard he recognized the +Missourian's voice in whispered conversation with the proprietor, +but the two men withdrew into the shadow as he approached. An ill- +defined uneasiness came over him; he knew the proprietor, who also +seemed to know the Missourian, and this evident avoidance of him +was significant. Perhaps his reputation as a doubtful Unionist had +preceded him, but this would not account for their conduct in a +district so strongly Southern in sympathy as Fair Plains. More +impressed by the occurrence than he cared to admit, when at last, +after some delay, he had secured his horse, and was once more in +the saddle, he kept a sharp lookout for his quondam companion. But +here another circumstance added to his suspicions: there was a main +road leading to Santa Inez, the next town, and the Rancho, and this +Clarence had purposely taken in order to watch the Missourian; but +there was also a cutoff directly to the Rancho, known only to the +habitues of the Rancho. After a few moments' rapid riding on a +mustang much superior to any in the hotel stables, he was satisfied +that the stranger must have taken the cut-off. Putting spurs to +his horse he trusted still to precede him to the Rancho--if that +were his destination. + +As he dashed along the familiar road, by a strange perversity of +fancy, instead of thinking of his purpose, he found himself +recalling the first time he had ridden that way in the flush of his +youth and hopefulness. The girl-sweetheart he was then going to +rejoin was now the wife of another; the woman who had been her +guardian was now his own wife. He had accepted without a pang the +young girl's dereliction, but it was through her revelation that he +was now about to confront the dereliction of his own wife. And +this was the reward of his youthful trust and loyalty! A bitter +laugh broke from his lips. It was part of his still youthful self- +delusion that he believed himself wiser and stronger for it. + +It was quite dark when he reached the upper field or first terrace +of the Rancho. He could see the white walls of the casa rising +dimly out of the green sea of early wild grasses, like a phantom +island. It was here that the cut-off joined the main road--now the +only one that led to the casa. He was satisfied that no one could +have preceded him from Fair Plains; but it was true that he must +take precautions against his own discovery. Dismounting near a +clump of willows, he unsaddled and unbridled his horse, and with a +cut of the riata over its haunches sent it flying across the field +in the direction of a band of feeding mustangs, which it presently +joined. Then, keeping well in the shadow of a belt of shrub-oaks, +he skirted the long lesser terraces of the casa, intending to +approach the house by way of the old garden and corral. A drizzling +rain, occasionally driven by the wind into long, misty, curtain-like +waves, obscured the prospect and favored his design. He reached the +low adobe wall of the corral in safety; looking over he could +detect, in spite of the darkness, that a number of the horses were +of alien brands, and even recognized one or two from the Santa Inez +district. The vague outline of buggies and carryalls filled the +long shed beside the stables. There WAS company at the casa--so far +Susy was right! + +Nevertheless, lingering still by the wall of the old garden for the +deepening of night, his nervous feverishness was again invaded and +benumbed by sullen memories. There was the opening left by the old +grille in the wall, behind which Mrs. Peyton stood on the morning +when he thought he was leaving the ranch forever; where he had +first clasped her in his arms, and stayed. A turn of the head, a +moment's indecision, a single glance of a languorous eye, had +brought this culmination. And now he stood again before that +ruined grille, his house and lands, even his NAME, misused by a +mad, scheming enthusiast, and himself a creeping spy of his own +dishonor! He turned with a bitter smile again to the garden. A +few dark red Castilian roses still leaned forward and swayed in the +wind with dripping leaves. It was here that the first morning of +his arrival he had kissed Susy; the perfume and color of her pink +skin came back to him with a sudden shock as he stood there; he +caught at a flower, drew it towards him, inhaled its odor in a long +breath that left him faint and leaning against the wall. Then +again he smiled, but this time more wickedly--in what he believed +his cynicism had sprung up the first instinct of revenge! + +It was now dark enough for him to venture across the carriage road +and make his way to the rear of the house. His first characteristic +instinct had been to enter openly at his own front gate, but the +terrible temptation to overhear and watch the conspiracy unobserved-- +that fascination common to deceived humanity to witness its own +shame--had now grown upon him. He knew that a word or gesture of +explanation, apology, appeal, or even terror from his wife would +check his rage and weaken his purpose. His perfect knowledge of the +house and the security of its inmates would enable him from some +obscure landing or gallery to participate in any secret conclave +they might hold in the patio--the only place suitable for so +numerous a rendezvous. The absence of light in the few external +windows pointed to this central gathering. And he had already +conceived his plan of entrance. + +Gaining the rear wall of the casa he began cautiously to skirt its +brambly base until he had reached a long, oven-like window half +obliterated by a monstrous passion vine. It was the window of what +had once been Mrs. Peyton's boudoir; the window by which he had +once forced an entrance to the house when it was in the hands of +squatters, the window from which Susy had signaled her Spanish +lover, the window whose grating had broken the neck of Judge +Peyton's presumed assassin. But these recollections no longer +delayed him; the moment for action had arrived. He knew that since +the tragedy the boudoir had been dismantled and shunned; the +servants believed it to be haunted by the assassin's ghost. With +the aid of the passion vine the ingress was easy; the interior +window was open; the rustle of dead leaves on the bare floor as he +entered, and the whir of a frightened bird by his ear, told the +story of its desolation and the source of the strange noises that +had been heard there. The door leading to the corridor was lightly +bolted, merely to keep it from rattling in the wind. Slipping the +bolt with the blade of his pocket-knife he peered into the dark +passage. The light streaming under a door to the left, and the +sound of voices, convinced him that his conjecture was right, and +the meeting was gathered on the broad balconies around the patio. +He knew that a narrow gallery, faced with Venetian blinds to +exclude the sun, looked down upon them. He managed to gain it +without discovery; luckily the blinds were still down; between +their slats, himself invisible, he could hear and see everything +that occurred. + +Yet even at this supreme moment the first thing that struck him was +the almost ludicrous contrast between the appearance of the meeting +and its tremendous object. Whether he was influenced by any +previous boyish conception of a clouded and gloomy conspiracy he +did not know, but he was for an instant almost disconcerted by the +apparent levity and festivity of the conclave. Decanters and +glasses stood on small tables before them; nearly all were drinking +and smoking. They comprised fifteen or twenty men, some of whose +faces were familiar to him elsewhere as Southern politicians; a +few, he was shocked to see, were well-known Northern Democrats. +Occupying a characteristically central position was the famous +Colonel Starbottle, of Virginia. Jaunty and youthful-looking in +his mask-like, beardless face, expansive and dignified in his +middle-aged port and carriage, he alone retained some of the +importance--albeit slightly theatrical and affected--of the +occasion. Clarence in his first hurried glance had not observed +his wife, and for a moment had felt relieved; but as Colonel +Starbottle arose at that moment, and with a studiously chivalrous +and courtly manner turned to his right, he saw that she was sitting +at the further end of the balcony, and that a man whom he recognized +as Captain Pinckney was standing beside her. The blood quickly +tightened around his heart, but left him cold and observant. + +"It was seldom, indeed," remarked Colonel Starbottle, placing his +fat fingers in the frill of his shirt front, "that a movement like +this was graced with the actual presence of a lofty, inspiring, yet +delicate spirit--a Boadicea--indeed, he might say a Joan of Arc--in +the person of their charming hostess, Mrs. Brant. Not only were +they favored by her social and hospitable ministration, but by her +active and enthusiastic cooperation in the glorious work they had +in hand. It was through her correspondence and earnest advocacy +that they were to be favored to-night with the aid and counsel of +one of the most distinguished and powerful men in the Southern +district of California, Judge Beeswinger, of Los Angeles. He had +not the honor of that gentleman's personal acquaintance; he +believed he was not far wrong in saying that this was also the +misfortune of every gentleman present; but the name itself was a +tower of strength. He would go further, and say that Mrs. Brant +herself was personally unacquainted with him, but it was through +the fervor, poetry, grace, and genius of her correspondence with +that gentleman that they were to have the honor of his presence +that very evening. It was understood that advices had been +received of his departure, and that he might be expected at Robles +at any moment." + +"But what proof have we of Judge Beeswinger's soundness?" said a +lazy Southern voice at the conclusion of Colonel Starbottle's +periods. "Nobody here seems to know him by sight: is it not risky +to admit a man to our meeting whom we are unable to identify?" + +"I reckon nobody but a fool or some prying mudsill of a Yankee +would trust his skin here," returned another; "and if he did we'd +know what to do with him." + +But Clarence's attention was riveted on his wife, and the +significant speech passed him as unheeded as had the colonel's +rhetoric. She was looking very handsome and slightly flushed, with +a proud light in her eyes that he had never seen before. Absorbed +in the discussion, she seemed to be paying little attention to +Captain Pinckney as she rose suddenly to her feet. + +"Judge Beeswinger will be attended here by Mr. MacNiel, of the Fair +Plains Hotel, who will vouch for him and introduce him," she said +in a clear voice, which rang with an imperiousness that Clarence +well remembered. "The judge was to arrive by the coach from +Martinez to Fair Plains, and is due now." + +"Is there no GENTLEMAN to introduce him? Must we take him on the +word of a common trader--by Jove! a whiskey-seller?" continued the +previous voice sneeringly. + +"On the word of a lady, Mr. Brooks," said Captain Pinckney, with a +slight gesture towards Mrs. Brant--"who answers for both." + +Clarence had started slightly at his wife's voice and the +information it conveyed. His fellow-passenger, and the confidant +of MacNiel, was the man they were expecting! If they had +recognized him, Clarence, would they not warn the company of his +proximity? He held his breath as the sound of voices came from the +outer gate of the courtyard. Mrs. Brant rose; at the same moment +the gate swung open, and a man entered. It WAS the Missourian. + +He turned with old-fashioned courtesy to the single woman standing +on the balcony. + +"My fair correspondent, I believe! I am Judge Beeswinger. Your +agent, MacNiel, passed me through your guards at the gate, but I +did not deem it advisable to bring him into this assembly of +gentlemen without your further consideration. I trust I was +right." + +The quiet dignity and self-possession, the quaint, old-fashioned +colonial precision of speech, modified by a soft Virginian +intonation, and, above all, some singular individuality of the man +himself, produced a profound sensation, and seemed to suddenly give +the gathering an impressiveness it had lacked before. For an +instant Clarence forgot himself and his personal wrongs in the +shock of indignation he felt at this potent addition to the ranks +of his enemies. He saw his wife's eyes sparkle with pride over her +acquisition, and noticed that Pinckney cast a disturbed glance at +the newcomer. + +The stranger ascended the few steps to the balcony and took Mrs. +Brant's hand with profound courtesy. "Introduce me to my +colleagues--distinctly and separately. It behooves a man at such a +moment to know to whom he entrusts his life and honor, and the life +and honor of his cause." + +It was evidently no mere formal courtesy to the stranger. As he +stepped forward along the balcony, and under Mrs. Brant's graceful +guidance was introduced to each of the members, he not only +listened with scrupulous care and attention to the name and +profession of each man, but bent upon him a clear, searching glance +that seemed to photograph him in his memory. With two exceptions. +He passed Colonel Starbottle's expanding shirt frill with a bow of +elaborate precision, and said, "Colonel Starbottle's fame requires +neither introduction nor explanation." He stopped before Captain +Pinckney and paused. + +"An officer of the United States army, I believe, sir?" + +"Yes." + +"Educated at West Point, I think, by the government, to whom you +have taken the oath of allegiance?" + +"Yes." + +"Very good, sir," said the stranger, turning away. + +"You have forgotten one other fact, sir," said Pinckney, with a +slightly supercilious air. + +"Indeed! What is it?" + +"I am, first of all, a native of the State of South Carolina!" + +A murmur of applause and approval ran round the balcony. Captain +Pinckney smiled and exchanged glances with Mrs. Brant, but the +stranger quietly returned to the central table beside Colonel +Starbottle. "I am not only an unexpected delegate to this august +assembly, gentlemen," he began gravely, "but I am the bearer of +perhaps equally unexpected news. By my position in the Southern +district I am in possession of dispatches received only this +morning by pony express. Fort Sumter has been besieged. The +United States flag, carrying relief to the beleaguered garrison, +has been fired upon by the State of South Carolina." + +A burst of almost hysteric applause and enthusiasm broke from the +assembly, and made the dim, vault-like passages and corridors of +the casa ring. Cheer after cheer went up to the veiled gallery and +the misty sky beyond. Men mounted on the tables and waved their +hands frantically, and in the midst of this bewildering turbulence +of sound and motion Clarence saw his wife mounted on a chair, with +burning cheeks and flashing eyes, waving her handkerchief like an +inspired priestess. Only the stranger, still standing beside +Colonel Starbottle, remained unmoved and impassive. Then, with an +imperative gesture, he demanded a sudden silence. + +"Convincing and unanimous as this demonstration is, gentlemen," he +began quietly, "it is my duty, nevertheless, to ask you if you have +seriously considered the meaning of the news I have brought. It is +my duty to tell you that it means civil war. It means the clash of +arms between two sections of a mighty country; it means the +disruption of friends, the breaking of family ties, the separation +of fathers and sons, of brothers and sisters--even, perhaps, to the +disseverment of husband and wife!" + +"It means the sovereignty of the South--and the breaking of a +covenant with lowborn traders and abolitionists," said Captain +Pinckney. + +"If there are any gentlemen present," continued the stranger, +without heeding the interruption, "who have pledged this State to +the support of the South in this emergency, or to the establishment +of a Pacific republic in aid and sympathy with it, whose names are +on this paper"--he lifted a sheet of paper lying before Colonel +Starbottle--"but who now feel that the gravity of the news demands +a more serious consideration of the purpose, they are at liberty to +withdraw from the meeting, giving their honor, as Southern +gentlemen, to keep the secret intact." + +"Not if I know it," interrupted a stalwart Kentuckian, as he rose +to his feet and strode down the steps to the patio. "For," he +added, placing his back against the gateway, "I'll shoot the first +coward that backs out now." + +A roar of laughter and approval followed, but was silenced again by +the quiet, unimpassioned voice of the stranger. "If, on the other +hand," he went on calmly, "you all feel that this news is the +fitting culmination and consecration of the hopes, wishes, and +plans of this meeting, you will assert it again, over your own +signatures, to Colonel Starbottle at this table." + +When the Kentuckian had risen, Clarence had started from his +concealment; when he now saw the eager figures pressing forward to +the table he hesitated no longer. Slipping along the passage, he +reached the staircase which led to the corridor in the rear of the +balcony. Descending this rapidly, he not only came upon the backs +of the excited crowd around the table, but even elbowed one of the +conspirators aside without being noticed. His wife, who had risen +from her chair at the end of the balcony, was already moving +towards the table. With a quick movement he seized her wrist, and +threw her back in the chair again. A cry broke from her lips as +she recognized him, but still holding her wrist, he stepped quickly +between her and the astonished crowd. There was a moment of +silence, then the cry of "Spy!" and "Seize him!" rose quickly, but +above all the voice and figure of the Missourian was heard +commanding them to stand back. Turning to Clarence, he said +quietly,-- + +"I should know your face, sir. Who are you?" + +"The husband of this woman and the master of this house," said +Clarence as quietly, but in a voice he hardly recognized as his +own. + +"Stand aside from her, then--unless you are hoping that her danger +may protect YOU!" said the Kentuckian, significantly drawing his +revolver. + +But Mrs. Brant sprang suddenly to her feet beside Clarence. + +"We are neither of us cowards, Mr. Brooks--though he speaks the +truth--and--more shame to me"--she added, with a look of savage +scorn at Clarence--"IS MY HUSBAND!" + +"What is your purpose in coming here?" continued Judge Beeswinger, +with his eyes fixed on Clarence. + +"I have given you all the information," said Clarence quietly, +"that is necessary to make you, as a gentleman, leave this house at +once--and that is my purpose. It is all the information you will +get from me as long as you and your friends insult my roof with +your uninvited presence. What I may have to say to you and each of +you hereafter--what I may choose to demand of you, according to +your own code of honor,"--he fixed his eyes on Captain Pinckney's,-- +"is another question, and one not usually discussed before a lady." + +"Pardon me. A moment--a single moment." + +It was the voice of Colonel Starbottle; it was the frilled shirt +front, the lightly buttoned blue coat with its expanding lapels, +like bursting petals, and the smiling mask of that gentleman rising +above the table and bowing to Clarence Brant and his wife with +infinite courtesy. "The--er--humiliating situation in which we +find ourselves, gentlemen,--the reluctant witnesses of--er--what we +trust is only a temporary disagreement between our charming hostess +and the--er--gentleman whom she recognized under the highest title +to our consideration,--is distressing to us all, and would seem to +amply justify that gentleman's claims to a personal satisfaction, +which I know we would all delight to give. But that situation +rests upon the supposition that our gathering here was of a purely +social or festive nature! It may be," continued the colonel with a +blandly reflective air, "that the spectacle of these decanters and +glasses, and the nectar furnished us by our Hebe-like hostess" (he +lifted a glass of whiskey and water to his lips while he bowed to +Mrs. Brant gracefully), "has led the gentleman to such a deduction. +But when I suggest to him that our meeting was of a business, or +private nature, it strikes me that the question of intrusion may be +fairly divided between him and ourselves. We may be even justified, +in view of that privacy, in asking him if his--er--entrance to +this house was--er--coincident with his appearance among us." + +"With my front door in possession of strangers," said Clarence, +more in reply to a sudden contemptuous glance from his wife than +Starbottle's insinuation, "I entered the house through the window." + +"Of my boudoir, where another intruder once broke his neck," +interrupted his wife with a mocking laugh. + +"Where I once helped this lady to regain possession of her house +when it was held by another party of illegal trespassers, who, +however, were content to call themselves 'jumpers,' and did not +claim the privacy of gentlemen." + +"Do you mean to imply, sir," began Colonel Starbottle haughtily, +"that"-- + +"I mean to imply, sir," said Clarence with quiet scorn, "that I +have neither the wish to know nor the slightest concern in any +purpose that brought you here, and that when you quit the house you +take your secrets and your privacy with you intact, without let or +hindrance from me." + +"Do you mean to say, Mr. Brant," said Judge Beeswinger, suppressing +the angry interruption of his fellows with a dominant wave of his +hand, as he fixed his eyes on Clarence keenly, "that you have no +sympathy with your wife's political sentiments?" + +"I have already given you the information necessary to make you +quit this house, and that is all you have a right to know," +returned Clarence with folded arms. + +"But I can answer for him," said Mrs. Brant, rising, with a +quivering voice and curling lip. "There IS no sympathy between us. +We are as far apart as the poles. We have nothing in common but +this house and his name." + +"But you are husband and wife, bound together by a sacred compact." + +"A compact!" echoed Mrs. Brant, with a bitter laugh. "Yes, the +compact that binds South Carolina to the nigger-worshipping +Massachusetts. The compact that links together white and black, +the gentleman and the trader, the planter and the poor white--the +compact of those UNITED States. Bah! THAT has been broken, and so +can this." + +Clarence's face paled. But before he could speak there was a rapid +clattering at the gate and a dismounted vaquero entered excitedly. +Turning to Mrs. Brant he said hurriedly, "Mother of God! the casa +is surrounded by a rabble of mounted men, and there is one among +them even now who demands admittance in the name of the Law." + +"This is your work," said Brooks, facing Clarence furiously. "You +have brought them with you, but, by God, they shall not save you!" +He would have clutched Clarence, but the powerful arm of Judge +Beeswinger intervened. Nevertheless, he still struggled to reach +Clarence, appealing to the others: "Are you fools to stand there +and let him triumph! Don't you see the cowardly Yankee trick he's +played upon us?" + +"He has not," said Mrs. Brant haughtily. "I have no reason to love +him or his friends; but I know he does not lie." + +"Gentlemen!--gentlemen!" implored Colonel Starbottle with beaming +and unctuous persuasion, "may I--er--remark--that all this is far +from the question? Are we to be alarmed because an unknown rabble, +no matter whence they come, demand entrance here in the name of the +Law? I am not aware of any law of the State of California that we +are infringing. By all means admit them." + +The gate was thrown open. A single thick-set man, apparently +unarmed and dressed like an ordinary traveler, followed by half a +dozen other equally unpretentious-looking men, entered. The leader +turned to the balcony. + +"I am the Chief of Police of San Francisco. I have warrants for +the arrest of Colonel Culpepper Starbottle, Joshua Brooks, Captain +Pinckney, Clarence Brant and Alice his wife, and others charged +with inciting to riot and unlawful practice calculated to disturb +the peace of the State of California and its relations with the +Federal government," said the leader, in a dry official voice. + +Clarence started. In spite of its monotonous utterance it was the +voice of the red-bearded controversialist of the stage-coach. But +where were his characteristic beard and hair? Involuntarily +Clarence glanced at Judge Beeswinger; that gentleman was quietly +regarding the stranger with an impassive face that betrayed no +recognition whatever. + +"But the city of San Francisco has no jurisdiction here," said +Colonel Starbottle, turning a bland smile towards his fellow- +members. "I am--er--sorry to inform you that you are simply +trespassing, sir." + +"I am here also as deputy sheriff," returned the stranger coolly. +"We were unable to locate the precise place of this meeting, +although we knew of its existence. I was sworn in this morning at +Santa Inez by the judge of this district, and these gentlemen with +me are my posse." + +There was a quick movement of resistance by the members, which was, +however, again waived blandly aside by Colonel Starbottle. Leaning +forward in a slightly forensic attitude, with his fingers on the +table and a shirt frill that seemed to have become of itself +erectile, he said, with pained but polite precision, "I grieve to +have to state, sir, that even that position is utterly untenable +here. I am a lawyer myself, as my friend here, Judge Beeswinger-- +eh? I beg your pardon!" + +The officer of the law had momentarily started, with his eyes fixed +on Judge Beeswinger, who, however, seemed to be quietly writing at +the table. + +"As Judge Beeswinger," continued Colonel Starbottle, "will probably +tell you and as a jurist himself, he will also probably agree with +me when I also inform you that, as the United States government is +an aggrieved party, it is a matter for the Federal courts to +prosecute, and that the only officer we can recognize is the United +States Marshal for the district. When I add that the marshal, +Colonel Crackenthorpe, is one of my oldest friends, and an active +sympathizer with the South in the present struggle, you will +understand that any action from him in this matter is exceedingly +improbable." + +The general murmur of laughter, relief, and approval was broken by +the quiet voice of Judge Beeswinger. + +"Let me see your warrant, Mr. Deputy Sheriff." + +The officer approached him with a slightly perplexed and constrained +air, and exhibited the paper. Judge Beeswinger handed it back to +him. "Colonel Starbottle is quite right in his contention," he said +quietly; "the only officer that this assembly can recognize is the +United States Marshal or his legal deputy. But Colonel Starbottle is +wrong in his supposition that Colonel Crackenthorpe still retains +the functions of that office. He was removed by the President of +the United States, and his successor was appointed and sworn in by +the Federal judge early this morning." He paused, and folding up +the paper on which he had been writing, placed it in the hands of +the deputy. "And this," he continued in the same even voice, +"constitutes you his deputy, and will enable you to carry out your +duty in coming here." + +"What the devil does this mean, sir? Who are you?" gasped Colonel +Starbottle, recoiling suddenly from the man at his side. + +"I am the new United States Marshal for the Southern District of +California." + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +Unsuspected and astounding as the revelation was to Clarence, its +strange reception by the conspirators seemed to him as astounding. +He had started forward, half expecting that the complacent and +self-confessed spy would be immolated by his infuriated dupes. But +to his surprise the shock seemed to have changed their natures, and +given them the dignity they had lacked. The excitability, +irritation, and recklessness which had previously characterized +them had disappeared. The deputy and his posse, who had advanced +to the assistance of their revealed chief, met with no resistance. +They had evidently, as if with one accord, drawn away from Judge +Beeswinger, leaving a cleared space around him, and regarded their +captors with sullen contemptuous silence. It was only broken by +Colonel Starbottle:-- + +"Your duty commands you, sir, to use all possible diligence in +bringing us before the Federal judge of this district--unless your +master in Washington has violated the Constitution so far as to +remove him, too!" + +"I understand you perfectly," returned Judge Beeswinger, with +unchanged composure; "and as you know that Judge Wilson +unfortunately cannot be removed except through a regular course of +impeachment, I suppose you may still count upon his Southern +sympathies to befriend you. With that I have nothing to do; my +duty is complete when my deputy has brought you before him and I +have stated the circumstances of the arrest." + +"I congratulate you, sir," said Captain Pinckney, with an ironical +salute, "on your prompt reward for your treachery to the South, and +your equally prompt adoption of the peculiar tactics of your +friends in the way in which you have entered this house." + +"I am sorry I cannot congratulate YOU, sir," returned Judge +Beeswinger gravely, on breaking your oath to the government which +has educated and supported you and given you the epaulettes you +disgrace. Nor shall I discuss 'treachery' with the man who has not +only violated the trust of his country, but even the integrity of +his friend's household. It is for that reason that I withhold the +action of this warrant in so far as it affects the persons of the +master and mistress of this home. I am satisfied that Mr. Brant +has been as ignorant of what has been done here as I am that his +wife has been only the foolish dupe of a double traitor!" + +"Silence!" + +The words broke simultaneously from the lips of Clarence and +Captain Pinckney. They stood staring at each other--the one pale, +the other crimson--as Mrs. Brant, apparently oblivious of the +significance of their united adjuration, turned to Judge Beeswinger +in the fury of her still stifled rage and mortification. + +"Keep your mercy for your fellow-spy," she said, with a contemptuous +gesture towards her husband; "I go with these gentlemen!" + +"You will not," said Clarence quietly, "until I have said a word to +you alone." He laid his hand firmly upon her wrist. + +The deputy and his prisoners filed slowly out of the courtyard +together, the latter courteously saluting Mrs. Brant as they +passed, but turning from Judge Beeswinger in contemptuous silence. +The judge followed them to the gate, but there he paused. Turning +to Mrs. Brant, who was still half struggling in the strong grip of +her husband, he said,-- + +"Any compunction I may have had in misleading you by accepting your +invitation here I dismissed after I had entered this house. And I +trust," he added, turning to Clarence sternly, "I leave you the +master of it!" + +As the gate closed behind him, Clarence locked it. When his wife +turned upon him angrily, he said quietly,-- + +"I have no intention of restraining your liberty a moment after our +interview is over, but until then I do not intend to be disturbed." + +She threw herself disdainfully back in her chair, her hands clasped +in her lap in half-contemptuous resignation, with her eyes upon her +long slim arched feet crossed before her. Even in her attitude +there was something of her old fascination which, however, now +seemed to sting Clarence to the quick. + +"I have nothing to say to you in regard to what has just passed in +this house, except that as long as I remain even nominally its +master it shall not be repeated. Although I shall no longer +attempt to influence or control your political sympathies, I shall +not allow you to indulge them where in any way they seem to imply +my sanction. But so little do I oppose your liberty, that you are +free to rejoin your political companions whenever you choose to do +so on your own responsibility. But I must first know from your own +lips whether your sympathies are purely political--or a name for +something else?" + +She had alternately flushed and paled, although still keeping her +scornful attitude as he went on, but there was no mistaking the +genuineness of her vague wonderment at his concluding words. + +"I don't understand you," she said, lifting her eyes to his in a +moment of cold curiosity. "What do you mean?" + +"What do I mean? What did Judge Beeswinger mean when he called +Captain Pinckney a double traitor?" he said roughly. + +She sprang to her feet with flashing eyes. "And you--YOU! dare to +repeat the cowardly lie of a confessed spy. This, then, is what +you wished to tell me--this the insult for which you have kept me +here; because you are incapable of understanding unselfish +patriotism or devotion--even to your own cause--you dare to judge +me by your own base, Yankee-trading standards. Yes, it is worthy +of you!" She walked rapidly up and down, and then suddenly faced +him. "I understand it all; I appreciate your magnanimity now. You +are willing I should join the company of these chivalrous gentlemen +in order to give color to your calumnies! Say at once that it was +you who put up this spy to correspond with me--to come here--in +order to entrap me. Yes entrap me--I--who a moment ago stood up +for you before these gentlemen, and said you could not lie. Bah!" + +Struck only by the wild extravagance of her speech and temper, +Clarence did not know that when women are most illogical they are +apt to be most sincere, and from a man's standpoint her unreasoning +deductions appeared to him only as an affectation to gain time for +thought, or a theatrical display, like Susy's. And he was turning +half contemptuously away, when she again faced him with flashing +eyes. + +"Well, hear me! I accept; I leave here at once, to join my own +people, my own friends--those who understand me--put what +construction on it that you choose. Do your worst; you cannot do +more to separate us than you have done just now." + +She left him, and ran up the steps with a singular return of her +old occasional nymph-like nimbleness--the movement of a woman who +had never borne children--and a swish of her long skirts that he +remembered for many a day after, as she disappeared in the +corridor. He remained looking after her--indignant, outraged, and +unconvinced. There was a rattling at the gate. + +He remembered he had locked it. He opened it to the flushed pink +cheeks and dancing eyes of Susy. The rain was still dripping from +her wet cloak as she swung it from her shoulders. + +"I know it all!--all that's happened," she burst out with half- +girlish exuberance and half the actress's declamation. "We met +them all in the road--posse and prisoners. Chief Thompson knew me +and told me all. And so you've done it--and you're master in your +old house again. Clarence, old boy! Jim said you wouldn't do it-- +said you'd weaken on account of her! But I said 'No.' I knew you +better, old Clarence, and I saw it in your face, for all your +stiffness! ha! But for all that I was mighty nervous and uneasy, +and I just made Jim send an excuse to the theatre and we rushed it +down here! Lordy! but it looks natural to see the old house again! +And she--you packed her off with the others--didn't you? Tell me, +Clarence," in her old appealing voice, "you shook her, too!" + +Dazed and astounded, and yet experiencing a vague sense of relief +with something like his old tenderness towards the willful woman +before him, he had silently regarded her until her allusion to his +wife recalled him to himself. + +"Hush!" he said quickly, with a glance towards the corridor. + +"Ah!" said Susy, with a malicious smile, "then that's why Captain +Pinckney was lingering in the rear with the deputy." + +"Silence!" repeated Clarence sternly. "Go in there," pointing to +the garden room below the balcony, "and wait there with your +husband." + +He half led, half pushed her into the room which had been his +business office, and returned to the patio. A hesitating voice +from the balcony said, "Clarence!" + +It was his wife's voice, but modified and gentler--more like her +voice as he had first heard it, or as if it had been chastened by +some reminiscence of those days. It was his wife's face, too, that +looked down on his--paler than he had seen it since he entered the +house. She was shawled and hooded, carrying a traveling-bag in her +hand. + +"I am going, Clarence," she said, pausing before him, with gentle +gravity, "but not in anger. I even ask you to forgive me for the +foolish words that I think your still more foolish accusation"--she +smiled faintly--"dragged from me. I am going because I know that I +have brought--and that while I am here I shall always be bringing-- +upon you the imputation and even the responsibility of my own +faith! While I am proud to own it,--and if needs be suffer for +it,--I have no right to ruin your prospects, or even make you the +victim of the slurs that others may cast upon me. Let us part as +friends--separated only by our different political faiths, but +keeping all other faiths together--until God shall settle the right +of this struggle. Perhaps it may be soon--I sometimes think it may +be years of agony for all; but until then, good-by." + +She had slowly descended the steps to the patio, looking handsomer +than he had ever seen her, and as if sustained and upheld by the +enthusiasm of her cause. Her hand was outstretched towards his-- +his heart beat violently--in another moment he might have forgotten +all and clasped her to his breast. Suddenly she stopped, her +outstretched arm stiffened, her finger pointed to the chair on +which Susy's cloak was hanging. + +"What's that?" she said in a sharp, high, metallic voice. "Who is +here? Speak!" + +"Susy," said Clarence. + +She cast a scathing glance round the patio, and then settled her +piercing eyes on Clarence with a bitter smile. + +"Already!" + +Clarence felt the blood rush to his face as he stammered, "She knew +what was happening here, and came to give you warning." + +"Liar!" + +"Stop!" said Clarence, with a white face. "She came to tell me +that Captain Pinckney was still lingering for you in the road." + +He threw open the gate to let her pass. As she swept out she +lifted her hand. As he closed the gate there were the white marks +of her four fingers on his cheek. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +For once Susy had not exaggerated. Captain Pinckney WAS lingering, +with the deputy who had charge of him, on the trail near the casa. +It had already been pretty well understood by both captives and +captors that the arrest was simply a legal demonstration; that the +sympathizing Federal judge would undoubtedly order the discharge of +the prisoners on their own recognizances, and it was probable that +the deputy saw no harm in granting Pinckney's request--which was +virtually only a delay in his liberation. It was also possible +that Pinckney had worked upon the chivalrous sympathies of the man +by professing his disinclination to leave their devoted colleague, +Mrs. Brant, at the mercy of her antagonistic and cold-blooded +husband at such a crisis, and it is to be feared also that +Clarence, as a reputed lukewarm partisan, excited no personal +sympathy, even from his own party. Howbeit, the deputy agreed to +delay Pinckney's journey for a parting interview with his fair +hostess. + +How far this expressed the real sentiments of Captain Pinckney was +never known. Whether his political association with Mrs. Brant had +developed into a warmer solicitude, understood or ignored by her,-- +what were his hopes and aspirations regarding her future,--were by +the course of fate never disclosed. A man of easy ethics, but +rigid artificialities of honor, flattered and pampered by class +prejudice, a so-called "man of the world," with no experience +beyond his own limited circle, yet brave and devoted to that, it +were well perhaps to leave this last act of his inefficient life as +it was accepted by the deputy. + +Dismounting he approached the house from the garden. He was +already familiar with the low arched doorway which led to the +business room, and from which he could gain admittance to the +patio, but it so chanced that he entered the dark passage at the +moment that Clarence had thrust Susy into the business room, and +heard its door shut sharply. For an instant he believed that Mrs. +Brant had taken refuge there, but as he cautiously moved forward he +heard her voice in the patio beyond. Its accents struck him as +pleading; an intense curiosity drew him further along the passage. +Suddenly her voice seemed to change to angry denunciation, and the +word "Liar" rang upon his ears. It was followed by his own name +uttered sardonically by Clarence, the swift rustle of a skirt, the +clash of the gate, and then--forgetting everything, he burst into +the patio. + +Clarence was just turning from the gate with the marks of his +wife's hand still red on his white cheek. He saw Captain +Pinckney's eyes upon it, and the faint, half-malicious, half- +hysteric smile upon his lips. But without a start or gesture of +surprise he locked the gate, and turning to him, said with frigid +significance,-- + +"I thank you for returning so promptly, and for recognizing the +only thing I now require at your hand." + +But Captain Pinckney had recovered his supercilious ease with the +significant demand. + +"You seem to have had something already from another's hand, sir, +but I am at your service," he said lightly. + +"You will consider that I have accepted it from you," said +Clarence, drawing closer to him with a rigid face. "I suppose it +will not be necessary for me to return it--to make you understand +me." + +"Go on," said Pinckney, flushing slightly. "Make your terms; I am +ready." + +"But I'm not," said the unexpected voice of the deputy at the +grille of the gateway. "Excuse my interfering, gentlemen, but this +sort o' thing ain't down in my schedule. I've let this gentleman," +pointing to Captain Pinckney, "off for a minit to say 'good-by' to +a lady, who I reckon has just ridden off in her buggy with her +servant without saying by your leave, but I didn't calkelate to let +him inter another business, which, like as not, may prevent me from +delivering his body safe and sound into court. You hear me!" As +Clarence opened the gate he added, "I don't want ter spoil sport +between gents, but it's got to come in after I've done my duty." + +"I'll meet you, sir, anywhere, and with what weapons you choose," +said Pinckney, turning angrily upon Clarence, "as soon as this +farce--for which you and your friends are responsible--is over." +He was furious at the intimation that Mrs. Brant had escaped him. + +A different thought was in the husband's mind. "But what assurance +have I that you are going on with the deputy?" he said with +purposely insulting deliberation. + +"My word, sir," said Captain Pinckney sharply. + +"And if that ain't enuff, there's mine!" said the deputy. "For if +this gentleman swerves to the right or left betwixt this and Santa +Inez, I'll blow a hole through him myself. And that," he added +deprecatingly, "is saying a good deal for a man who doesn't want to +spoil sport, and for the matter of that is willing to stand by and +see fair play done at Santa Inez any time to-morrow before +breakfast." + +"Then I can count on you," said Clarence, with a sudden impulse +extending his hand. + +The man hesitated a moment and then grasped it. + +"Well, I wasn't expecting that," he said slowly; "but you look as +if you meant business, and if you ain't got anybody else to see you +through, I'm thar! I suppose this gentleman will have his friends." + +"I shall be there at six with my seconds," said Pinckney curtly. +"Lead on." + +The gate closed behind them. Clarence stood looking around the +empty patio and the silent house, from which it was now plain that +the servants had been withdrawn to insure the secrecy of the +conspiracy. Cool and collected as he knew he was, he remained for +a moment in hesitation. Then the sound of voices came to his ear +from the garden room, the light frivolity of Susy's laugh and +Hooker's huskier accents. He had forgotten they were there--he had +forgotten their existence! + +Trusting still to his calmness, he called to Hooker in his usual +voice. That gentleman appeared with a face which his attempts to +make unconcerned and impassive had, however, only deepened into +funereal gravity. + +"I have something to attend to," said Clarence, with a faint smile, +"and I must ask you and Susy to excuse me for a little while. She +knows the house perfectly, and will call the servants from the +annex to provide you both with refreshment until I join you a +little later." Satisfied from Hooker's manner that they knew +nothing of his later interview with Pinckney, he turned away and +ascended to his own room. + +There he threw himself into an armchair by the dim light of a +single candle as if to reflect. But he was conscious, even then, +of his own calmness and want of excitement, and that no reflection +was necessary. What he had done and what he intended to do was +quite clear, there was no alternative suggested or to be even +sought after. He had that sense of relief which comes with the +climax of all great struggles, even of defeat. + +He had never known before how hopeless and continuous had been that +struggle until now it was over. He had no fear of tomorrow, he +would meet it as he had to-day, with the same singular consciousness +of being equal to the occasion. There was even no necessity of +preparation for it; his will, leaving his fortune to his wife,-- +which seemed a slight thing now in this greater separation,--was +already in his safe in San Francisco, his pistols were in the next +room. He was even slightly disturbed by his own insensibility, and +passed into his wife's bedroom partly in the hope of disturbing his +serenity by some memento of their past. There was no disorder of +flight--everything was in its place, except the drawer of her desk, +which was still open, as if she had taken something from it as an +afterthought. There were letters and papers there, some of his own +and some in Captain Pinckney's handwriting. It did not occur to him +to look at them--even to justify himself, or excuse her. He knew +that his hatred of Captain Pinckney was not so much that he believed +him her lover, as his sudden conviction that she was like him! He +was the male of her species--a being antagonistic to himself, whom +he could fight, and crush, and revenge himself upon. But most of +all he loathed his past, not on account of her, but of his own +weakness that had made him her dupe and a misunderstood man to his +friends. He had been derelict of duty in his unselfish devotion to +her; he had stifled his ambition, and underrated his own +possibilities. No wonder that others had accepted him at his own +valuation. Clarence Brant was a modest man, but the egotism of +modesty is more fatal than that of pretension, for it has the +haunting consciousness of superior virtue. + +He re-entered his own room and again threw himself into his chair. +His calm was being succeeded by a physical weariness; he remembered +he had not slept the night before, and he ought to take some rest +to be fresh in the early morning. Yet he must also show himself +before his self-invited guests,--Susy and her husband,--or their +suspicions would be aroused. He would try to sleep for a little +while in the chair before he went downstairs again. He closed his +eyes oddly enough on a dim dreamy recollection of Susy in the old +days, in the little madrono hollow where she had once given him a +rendezvous. He forgot the maturer and critical uneasiness with +which he had then received her coquettish and willful advances, +which he now knew was the effect of the growing dominance of Mrs. +Peyton over him, and remembered only her bright, youthful eyes, and +the kisses he had pressed upon her soft fragrant cheek. The +faintness he had felt when waiting in the old rose garden, a few +hours ago, seemed to steal on him once more, and to lapse into a +pleasant drowsiness. He even seemed again to inhale the perfume of +the roses. + +"Clarence!" + +He started. He had been sleeping, but the voice sounded strangely +real. + +A light, girlish laugh followed. He sprang to his feet. It was +Susy standing beside him--and Susy even as she looked in the old +days! + +For with a flash of her old audacity, aided by her familiar +knowledge of the house and the bunch of household keys she had +found, which dangled from her girdle, as in the old fashion, she +had disinterred one of her old frocks from a closet, slipped it on, +and unloosening her brown hair had let it fall in rippling waves +down her back. It was Susy in her old girlishness, with the +instinct of the grown actress in the arrangement of her short skirt +over her pretty ankles and the half-conscious pose she had taken. + +"Poor dear old Clarence," she said, with dancing eyes; "I might +have won a dozen pairs of gloves from you while you slept there. +But you're tired, dear old boy, and you've had a hard time of it. +No matter; you've shown yourself a man at last, and I'm proud of +you." + +Half ashamed of the pleasure he felt even in his embarrassment, +Clarence stammered, "But this change--this dress." + +Susy clapped her hands like a child. "I knew it would surprise +you! It's an old frock I wore the year I went away with auntie. I +knew where it was hidden, and fished it out again with these keys, +Clarence; it seemed so like old times. Lord! when I was with the +old servants again, and you didn't come down, I just felt as if I'd +never been away, and I just rampaged free. It seemed to me, don't +you know, not as if I'd just come, but as if I'd always been right +here, and it was you who'd just come. Don't you understand! Just +as you came when me and Mary Rogers were here; don't you remember +her, Clarence, and how she used to do 'gooseberry' for us? Well, +just like that. So I said to Jim, 'I don't know you any more-- +get!' and I just slipped on this frock and ordered Manuela around +as I used to do--and she in fits of laughter; I reckon, Clarence, +she hasn't laughed as much since I left. And then I thought of +you--perhaps worried and flustered as yet over things, and the +change, and I just slipped into the kitchen and I told old fat +Conchita to make some of these tortillas you know,--with sugar and +cinnamon sprinkled on top,--and I tied on an apron and brought 'em +up to you on a tray with a glass of that old Catalan wine you used +to like. Then I sorter felt frightened when I got here, and I +didn't hear any noise, and I put the tray down in the hall and +peeped in and found you asleep. Sit still, I'll fetch em." + +She tripped out into the passage, returning with the tray, which +she put on the table beside Clarence, and then standing back a +little and with her hands tucked soubrette fashion in the tiny +pockets of her apron, gazed at him with a mischievous smile. + +It was impossible not to smile back as he nibbled the crisp Mexican +cake and drank the old mission wine. And Susy's tongue trilled an +accompaniment to his thanks. + +"Lord! it seems so nice to be here--just you and me, Clarence--like +in the old days--with nobody naggin' and swoopin' round after you. +Don't be greedy, Clarence, but give me a cake." She took one and +finished the dregs of his glass. + +Then sitting on the arm of his chair, she darted a violet ray of +half reproach and half mischievousness into his amused and +retrospective eyes. "There used to be room for two in that chair, +Klarns." + +The use of the old childish diminutive for his name seemed to him +natural as her familiarity, and he moved a little sideways to make +room for her with an instinct of pleasure, but the same sense of +irresponsibility that had characterized his reflections. +Nevertheless, he looked critically into the mischievous eyes, and +said quietly,-- + +"Where is your husband?" + +There was no trace of embarrassment, apology, or even of +consciousness in her pretty face as she replied, passing her +hand lightly through his hair,-- + +"Oh, Jim? I've packed him off!" + +"Packed him off!" echoed Clarence, slightly astonished. + +"Yes, to Fair Plains, full tilt after your wife's buggy. You see, +Clarence, after the old cat--that's your wife, please--left, I +wanted to make sure she had gone, and wasn't hangin' round to lead +you off again with your leg tied to her apron string like a +chicken's! No! I said to Jim, 'Just you ride after her until you +see she's safe and sound in the down coach from Fair Plains without +her knowin' it, and if she's inclined to hang back or wobble any, +you post back here and let me know!' I told him I would stay and +look after you to see you didn't bolt too!" She laughed, and then +added, "But I didn't think I should fall into the old ways so soon, +and have such a nice time. Did you, Clarence?" + +She looked so irresponsible, sitting there with her face near his, +and so childishly, or perhaps thoughtlessly, happy, that he could +only admire her levity, and even the slight shock that her flippant +allusion to his wife had given him seemed to him only a weakness of +his own. After all, was not hers the true philosophy? Why should +not these bright eyes see things more clearly than his own? +Nevertheless, with his eyes still fixed upon them, he continued,-- + +"And Jim was willing to go?" + +She stopped, with her fingers still lifting a lock of his hair. +"Why, yes, you silly--why shouldn't he? I'd like to see him +refuse. Why, Lord! Jim will do anything I ask him." She put down +the lock of hair, and suddenly looking full into his eyes, said, +"That's just the difference between him and me, and you and--that +woman!" + +"Then you love him!" + +"About as much as you love her," she said, with an unaffected +laugh; "only he don't wind me around his finger." + +No doubt she was right for all her thoughtlessness, and yet he was +going to fight about that woman to-morrow! No--he forgot; he was +going to fight Captain Pinckney because he was like her! + +Susy had put her finger on the crease between his brows which this +supposition had made, and tried to rub it out. + +"You know it as well as I do, Clarence," she said, with a pretty +wrinkling of her own brows, which was her nearest approach to +thoughtfulness. "You know you never really liked her, only you +thought her ways were grander and more proper than mine, and you +know you were always a little bit of a snob and a prig too--dear +boy. And Mrs. Peyton was--bless my soul!--a Benham and a planter's +daughter, and I--I was only a picked-up orphan! That's where Jim +is better than you--now sit still, goosey!--even if I don't like +him as much. Oh, I know what you're always thinking, you're +thinking we're both exaggerated and theatrical, ain't you? But +don't you think it's a heap better to be exaggerated and theatrical +about things that are just sentimental and romantic than to be so +awfully possessed and overcome about things that are only real? +There, you needn't stare at me so! It's true. You've had your +fill of grandeur and propriety, and--here you are. And," she added +with a little chuckle, as she tucked up her feet and leaned a +little closer to him, "here's ME." + +He did not speak, but his arm quite unconsciously passed round her +small waist. + +"You see, Clarence," she went on with equal unconsciousness of the +act, "you ought never to have let me go--never! You ought to have +kept me here--or run away with me. And you oughtn't to have tried +to make me proper. And you oughtn't to have driven me to flirt +with that horrid Spaniard, and you oughtn't to have been so +horribly cold and severe when I did. And you oughtn't to have made +me take up with Jim, who was the only one who thought me his equal. +I might have been very silly and capricious; I might have been very +vain, but my vanity isn't a bit worse than your pride; my love of +praise and applause in the theatre isn't a bit more horrid than +your fears of what people might think of you or me. That's gospel +truth, isn't it, Clarence? Tell me! Don't look that way and this-- +look at ME! I ain't poisonous, Clarence. Why, one of your cheeks +is redder than the other, Clarence; that's the one that's turned +from me. Come," she went on, taking the lapels of his coat between +her hands and half shaking him, half drawing him nearer her bright +face. "Tell me--isn't it true?" + +"I was thinking of you just now when I fell asleep, Susy," he said. +He did not know why he said it; he had not intended to tell her, he +had only meant to avoid a direct answer to her question; yet even +now he went on. "And I thought of you when I was out there in the +rose garden waiting to come in here." + +"You did?" she said, drawing in her breath. A wave of delicate +pink color came up to her very eyes, it seemed to him as quickly +and as innocently as when she was a girl. "And what DID you think, +Klarns," she half whispered--"tell me." + +He did not speak, but answered her blue eyes and then her lips, as +her arms slipped quite naturally around his neck. + + . . . . . . + +The dawn was breaking as Clarence and Jim Hooker emerged together +from the gate of the casa. Mr. Hooker looked sleepy. He had +found, after his return from Fair Plains, that his host had an +early engagement at Santa Inez, and he had insisted upon rising to +see him off. It was with difficulty, indeed, that Clarence could +prevent his accompanying him. Clarence had not revealed to Susy +the night before the real object of his journey, nor did Hooker +evidently suspect it, yet when the former had mounted his horse, he +hesitated for an instant, extending his hand. + +"If I should happen to be detained," he began with a half smile. + +But Jim was struggling with a yawn. "That's all right--don't mind +us," he said, stretching his arms. Clarence's hesitating hand +dropped to his side, and with a light reckless laugh and a half +sense of providential relief he galloped away. + +What happened immediately thereafter during his solitary ride to +Santa Inez, looking back upon it in after years, seemed but a +confused recollection, more like a dream. The long stretches of +vague distance, gradually opening clearer with the rising sun in an +unclouded sky; the meeting with a few early or belated travelers +and his unconscious avoidance of them, as if they might know of his +object; the black shadows of foreshortened cattle rising before him +on the plain and arousing the same uneasy sensation of their being +waylaying men; the wondering recognition of houses and landmarks he +had long been familiar with; his purposeless attempts to recall the +circumstances in which he had known them--all these were like a +dream. So, too, were the recollections of the night before, the +episode with Susy, already mingled and blended with the memory of +their previous past; his futile attempts to look forward to the +future, always, however, abandoned with relief at the thought that +the next few hours might make them unnecessary. So also was the +sudden realization that Santa Inez was before him, when he had +thought he was not yet halfway there, and as he dismounted before +the Court House his singular feeling--followed, however, by no fear +or distress--was that he had come so early to the rendezvous that +he was not yet quite prepared for it. + +This same sense of unreality pervaded his meeting with the deputy +sheriff, at the news that the Federal judge had, as was expected, +dismissed the prisoners on their own recognizances, and that +Captain Pinckney was at the hotel at breakfast. In the like +abstracted manner he replied to the one or two questions of the +deputy, exhibited the pistols he had brought with him, and finally +accompanied him to a little meadow hidden by trees, below the +hotel, where the other principal and his seconds were awaiting +them. And here he awoke--clear-eyed, keen, forceful, and intense! + +So stimulated were his faculties that his sense of hearing in its +acuteness took in every word of the conversation between the +seconds, a few paces distant. He heard his adversary's seconds say +carelessly to the deputy sheriff, "I presume this is a case where +there will be no apology or mediation," and the deputy's reply, "I +reckon my man means business, but he seems a little queer." He +heard the other second laugh, and say lightly, "They're apt to be +so when it's their first time out," followed by the more anxious +aside of the other second as the deputy turned away,--"Yes, but by +G-d I don't like his looks!" His sense of sight was also so acute +that having lost the choice of position, when the coin was tossed, +and being turned with his face to the sun, even through the glare +he saw, with unerring distinctness of outline, the black-coated +figure of his opponent moved into range--saw the perfect outline of +his features, and how the easy, supercilious smile, as he threw +away his cigar, appeared to drop out of his face with a kind of +vacant awe as he faced him. He felt his nerves become as steel as +the counting began, and at the word "three," knew he had fired by +the recoil of the pistol in his leveled hand, simultaneously with +its utterance. And at the same moment, still standing like a rock, +he saw his adversary miserably collapse, his legs grotesquely +curving inwards under him,--without even the dignity of death in +his fall,--and so sink helplessly like a felled bull to the ground. +Still erect, and lowering only the muzzle of his pistol, as a thin +feather of smoke curled up its shining side, he saw the doctor and +seconds run quickly to the heap, try to lift its limp impotence +into shape, and let it drop again with the words, "Right through +the forehead, by G-d!" + +"You've done for him," said the deputy, turning to Clarence with a +singular look of curiosity, "and I reckon you had better get out of +this mighty quick. They didn't expect it; they're just ragin'; +they may round on you--and"--he added, more slowly, "they seem to +have just found out who you are." + +Even while he was speaking, Clarence, with his quickened ear, heard +the words, "One of Hamilton Brant's pups" "Just like his father," +from the group around the dead man. He did not hesitate, but +walked coolly towards them. Yet a certain fierce pride--which he +had never known before--stirred in his veins as their voices hushed +and they half recoiled before him. + +"Am I to understand from my second, gentlemen," he said, looking +round the group, "that you are not satisfied?" + +"The fight was square enough," said Pinckney's second in some +embarrassment, "but I reckon that he," pointing to the dead man, +"did not know who you were." + +"Do you mean that he did not know that I was the son of a man +proficient in the use of arms?" + +"I reckon that's about it," returned the second, glancing at the +others. + +"I am glad to say, sir, that I have a better opinion of his +courage," said Clarence, lifting his hat to the dead body as he +turned away. + +Yet he was conscious of no remorse, concern, or even pity in his +act. Perhaps this was visible in his face, for the group appeared +awed by this perfection of the duelist's coolness, and even +returned his formal parting salutation with a vague and timid +respect. He thanked the deputy, regained the hotel, saddled his +horse and galloped away. + +But not towards the Rancho. Now that he could think of his future, +that had no place in his reflections; even the episode of Susy was +forgotten in the new and strange conception of himself and his +irresponsibility which had come upon him with the killing of +Pinckney and the words of his second. It was his dead father who +had stiffened his arm and directed the fatal shot! It was +hereditary influences--which others had been so quick to recognize-- +that had brought about this completing climax of his trouble. How +else could he account for it that he--a conscientious, peaceful, +sensitive man, tender and forgiving as he had believed himself to +be--could now feel so little sorrow or compunction for his +culminating act? He had read of successful duelists who were +haunted by remorse for their first victim; who retained a terrible +consciousness of the appearance of the dead man; he had no such +feeling; he had only a grim contentment in the wiped-out +inefficient life, and contempt for the limp and helpless body. He +suddenly recalled his callousness as a boy when face to face with +the victims of the Indian massacre, his sense of fastidious +superciliousness in the discovery of the body of Susy's mother!-- +surely it was the cold blood of his father influencing him ever +thus. What had he to do with affection, with domestic happiness, +with the ordinary ambitions of man's life--whose blood was frozen +at its source! Yet even with this very thought came once more the +old inconsistent tenderness he had as a boy lavished upon the +almost unknown and fugitive father who had forsaken his childish +companionship, and remembered him only by secret gifts. He +remembered how he had worshiped him even while the pious padres at +San Jose were endeavoring to eliminate this terrible poison from +his blood and combat his hereditary instinct in his conflicts with +his school-fellows. And it was a part of this inconsistency that, +riding away from the scene of his first bloodshed, his eyes were +dimmed with moisture, not for his victim, but for the one being who +he believed had impelled him to the act. + +This and more was in his mind during his long ride to Fair Plains, +his journey by coach to the Embarcadero, his midnight passage +across the dark waters of the bay, and his re-entrance to San +Francisco, but what should be his future was still unsettled. + +As he wound round the crest of Russian Hill and looked down again +upon the awakened city, he was startled to see that it was +fluttering and streaming with bunting. From every public building +and hotel, from the roofs of private houses, and even the windows +of lonely dwellings, flapped and waved the striped and starry +banner. The steady breath of the sea carried it out from masts and +yards of ships at their wharves, from the battlements of the forts +Alcatraz and Yerba Bueno. He remembered that the ferryman had told +him that the news from Fort Sumter had swept the city with a +revulsion of patriotic sentiment, and that there was no doubt that +the State was saved to the Union. He looked down upon it with +haggard, bewildered eyes, and then a strange gasp and fullness of +the throat! For afar a solitary bugle had blown the "reveille" at +Fort Alcatraz. + + + +PART II. + +CHAPTER I. + + +Night at last, and the stir and tumult of a great fight over. Even +the excitement that had swept this portion of the battlefield--only +a small section of a vaster area of struggle--into which a brigade +had marched, held its own, been beaten back, recovered its ground, +and pursuing, had passed out of it forever, leaving only its dead +behind, and knowing nothing more of that struggle than its own +impact and momentum--even this wild excitement had long since +evaporated with the stinging smoke of gunpowder, the acrid smell of +burning rags from the clothing of a dead soldier fired by a +bursting shell, or the heated reek of sweat and leather. A cool +breath that seemed to bring back once more the odor of the upturned +earthworks along the now dumb line of battle began to move from the +suggestive darkness beyond. + +But into that awful penetralia of death and silence there was no +invasion--there had been no retreat. A few of the wounded had been +brought out, under fire, but the others had been left with the dead +for the morning light and succor. For it was known that in that +horrible obscurity, riderless horses, frantic with the smell of +blood, galloped wildly here and there, or, maddened by wounds, +plunged furiously at the intruder; that the wounded soldier, still +armed, could not always distinguish friend from foe or from the +ghouls of camp followers who stripped the dead in the darkness and +struggled with the dying. A shot or two heard somewhere in that +obscurity counted as nothing with the long fusillade that had swept +it in the daytime; the passing of a single life, more or less, +amounted to little in the long roll-call of the day's slaughter. + +But with the first beams of the morning sun--and the slowly moving +"relief detail" from the camp--came a weird half-resurrection of +that ghastly field. Then it was that the long rays of sunlight, +streaming away a mile beyond the battle line, pointed out the first +harvest of the dead where the reserves had been posted. There they +lay in heaps and piles, killed by solid shot or bursting shells +that had leaped the battle line to plunge into the waiting ranks +beyond. As the sun lifted higher its beams fell within the range +of musketry fire, where the dead lay thicker,--even as they had +fallen when killed outright,--with arms extended and feet at all +angles to the field. As it touched these dead upturned faces, +strangely enough it brought out no expression of pain or anguish-- +but rather as if death had arrested them only in surprise and awe. +It revealed on the lips of those who had been mortally wounded and +had turned upon their side the relief which death had brought their +suffering, sometimes shown in a faint smile. Mounting higher, it +glanced upon the actual battle line, curiously curving for the +shelter of walls, fences, and breastworks, and here the dead lay, +even as when they lay and fired, their faces prone in the grass but +their muskets still resting across the breastworks. Exposed to +grape and canister from the battery on the ridge, death had come to +them mercifully also--through the head and throat. And now the +whole field lay bare in the sunlight, broken with grotesque shadows +cast from sitting, crouching, half-recumbent but always rigid +figures, which might have been effigies on their own monuments. +One half-kneeling soldier, with head bowed between his stiffened +hands, might have stood for a carven figure of Grief at the feet of +his dead comrade. A captain, shot through the brain in the act of +mounting a wall, lay sideways half across it, his lips parted with +a word of command; his sword still pointing over the barrier the +way that they should go. + +But it was not until the sun had mounted higher that it struck the +central horror of the field and seemed to linger there in dazzling +persistence, now and then returning to it in startling flashes that +it might be seen of men and those who brought succor. A tiny brook +had run obliquely near the battle line. It was here that, the +night before the battle, friend and foe had filled their canteens +side by side with soldierly recklessness--or perhaps a higher +instinct--purposely ignoring each other's presence; it was here +that the wounded had afterwards crept, crawled, and dragged +themselves, here they had pushed, wrangled, striven, and fought for +a draught of that precious fluid which assuaged the thirst of their +wounds--or happily put them out of their misery forever; here +overborne, crushed, suffocated by numbers, pouring their own blood +into the flood, and tumbling after it with their helpless bodies, +they dammed the stream, until recoiling, red and angry, it had +burst its banks and overflowed the cotton-field in a broad pool +that now sparkled in the sunlight. But below this human dam--a +mile away--where the brook still crept sluggishly, the ambulance +horses sniffed and started from it. + +The detail moved on slowly, doing their work expeditiously, and +apparently callously, but really only with that mechanical movement +that saves emotion. Only once they were moved to an outbreak of +indignation,--the discovery of the body of an officer whose pockets +were turned inside out, but whose hand was still tightly grasped on +his buttoned waistcoat, as if resisting the outrage that had been +done while still in life. As the men disengaged the stiffened hand +something slipped from the waistcoat to the ground. The corporal +picked it up and handed it to his officer. It was a sealed packet. +The officer received it with the carelessness which long experience +of these pathetic missives from the dying to their living relations +had induced, and dropped it in the pocket of his tunic, with the +half-dozen others that he had picked up that morning, and moved on +with the detail. A little further on they halted, in the attitude +of attention, as a mounted officer appeared, riding slowly down the +line. + +There was something more than the habitual respect of their +superior in their faces as he came forward. For it was the general +who had commanded the brigade the day before,--the man who had +leaped with one bound into the foremost rank of military leaders. +It was his invincible spirit that had led the advance, held back +defeat against overwhelming numbers, sustained the rally, impressed +his subordinate officers with his own undeviating purpose, and even +infused them with an almost superstitious belief in his destiny of +success. It was this man who had done what it was deemed impossible +to do,--what even at the time it was thought unwise and unstrategic +to do,--who had held a weak position, of apparently no importance, +under the mandate of an incomprehensible order from his superior, +which at best asked only for a sacrifice and was rewarded with a +victory. He had decimated his brigade, but the wounded and dying +had cheered him as he passed, and the survivors had pursued the +enemy until the bugle called them back. For such a record he looked +still too young and scholarly, albeit his handsome face was dark and +energetic, and his manner taciturn. + +His quick eye had already caught sight of the rifled body of the +officer, and contracted. As the captain of the detail saluted him +he said curtly,-- + +"I thought the orders were to fire upon any one desecrating the +dead?" + +"They are, General; but the hyenas don't give us a chance. That's +all yonder poor fellow saved from their claws," replied the +officer, as he held up the sealed packet. "It has no address." + +The general took it, examined the envelope, thrust it into his +belt, and said,-- + +"I will take charge of it." + +The sound of horses' hoofs came from the rocky roadside beyond +the brook. Both men turned. A number of field officers were +approaching. + +"The division staff," said the captain, in a lower voice, falling +back. + +They came slowly forward, a central figure on a gray horse leading +here--as in history. A short, thick-set man with a grizzled beard +closely cropped around an inscrutable mouth, and the serious +formality of a respectable country deacon in his aspect, which even +the major-generals blazon on the shoulder-strap of his loose tunic +on his soldierly seat in the saddle could not entirely obliterate. +He had evidently perceived the general of brigade, and quickened +his horse as the latter drew up. The staff followed more leisurely, +but still with some curiosity, to witness the meeting of the first +general of the army with the youngest. The division general +saluted, but almost instantly withdrew his leathern gauntlet, and +offered his bared hand to the brigadier. The words of heroes are +scant. The drawn-up detail, the waiting staff listened. This was +all they heard:-- + +"Halleck tells me you're from California?" + +"Yes, General." + +"Ah! I lived there, too, in the early days." + +"Wonderful country. Developed greatly since my time, I suppose?" + +"Yes, General." + +"Great resources; finest wheat-growing country in the world, sir. +You don't happen to know what the actual crop was this year?" + +"Hardly, General! but something enormous." + +"Yes, I have always said it would be. Have a cigar?" + +He handed his cigar-case to the brigadier. Then he took one +himself, lighted it at the smouldering end of the one he had taken +from his mouth, was about to throw the stump carelessly down, but, +suddenly recollecting himself, leaned over his horse, and dropped +it carefully a few inches away from the face of a dead soldier. +Then, straightening himself in the saddle, he shoved his horse +against the brigadier, moving him a little further on, while a +slight movement of his hand kept the staff from following. + +"A heavy loss here!" + +"I'm afraid so, General." + +"It couldn't be helped. We had to rush in your brigade to gain +time, and occupy the enemy, until we could change front." + +The young general looked at the shrewd, cold eyes of his chief. + +"Change front?" he echoed. + +"Yes. Before a gun was fired, we discovered that the enemy was in +complete possession of all our plans, and knew every detail of our +forward movement. All had to be changed." + +The younger man now instantly understood the incomprehensible order +of the day before. + +The general of division continued, with his first touch of official +formality,-- + +"You understand, therefore, General Brant, that in the face of this +extraordinary treachery, the utmost vigilance is required, and a +complete surveillance of your camp followers and civilians, to +detect the actual spy within our lines, or the traitor we are +harboring, who has become possessed of this information. You will +overhaul your brigade, and weed out all suspects, and in the +position which you are to take to-morrow, and the plantation you +will occupy, you will see that your private quarters, as well as +your lines, are cleared of all but those you can vouch for." + +He reined in his horse, again extended his hand, saluted, and +rejoined his staff. + +Brigadier-General Clarence Brant remained for a moment with his +head bent in thoughtful contemplation of the coolness of his +veteran chief under this exciting disclosure, and the strategy with +which he had frustrated the traitor's success. Then his eye caught +the sealed packet in his belt. He mechanically drew it out, and +broke the seal. The envelope was filled with papers and memorandums. +But as he looked at them his face darkened and his brow knit. He +glanced quickly around him. The staff had trotted away; the captain +and his detail were continuing their work at a little distance. He +took a long breath, for he was holding in his hand a tracing of +their camp, even of the position he was to occupy tomorrow, and a +detailed account of the movements, plans, and force of the whole +division as had been arranged in council of war the day before the +battle! But there was no indication of the writer or his intentions. + +He thrust the papers hurriedly back into the envelope, but placed +it, this time, in his breast. He galloped towards the captain. + +"Let me see again the officer from whom you took that packet!" + +The captain led him to where the body lay, with others, extended +more decently on the grass awaiting removal. General Brant with +difficulty repressed an ejaculation. + +"Why, it's one of our own men," he said quickly. + +"Yes, General. They say it's Lieutenant Wainwright, a regular, of +the paymaster general's department." + +"Then what was he doing here?" asked General Brant sternly. + +"I can't make out, sir, unless he went into the last advance as a +volunteer. Wanted to see the fight, I suppose. He was a dashing +fellow, a West Pointer,--and a Southerner, too,--a Virginian." + +"A Southerner!" echoed Brant quickly. + +"Yes, sir." + +"Search him again," said Brant quietly. He had recovered his usual +coolness, and as the captain again examined the body, he took out +his tablets and wrote a few lines. It was an order to search the +quarters of Lieutenant Wainwright and bring all papers, letters, +and documents to him. He then beckoned one of the detail towards +him. "Take that to the provost marshal at once. Well, Captain," +he added calmly, as the officer again approached him, "what do you +find?" + +"Only this, sir," returned the captain, with a half smile, producing +a small photograph. "I suppose it was overlooked, too." + +He handed it to Brant. + +There was a sudden fixing of his commanding officer's eyes, but his +face did not otherwise change. + +"It's the usual find, General. Always a photograph! But this time +a handsome woman!" + +"Very," said Clarence Brant quietly. It was the portrait of his +own wife. + + +CHAPTER II. + + +Nevertheless, so complete was his control of voice and manner that, +as he rode on to his quarters, no one would have dreamed that +General Brant had just looked upon the likeness of the wife from +whom he had parted in anger four years ago. Still less would they +have suspected the strange fear that came upon him that in some way +she was connected with the treachery he had just discovered. He +had heard from her only once, and then through her late husband's +lawyer, in regard to her Californian property, and believed that +she had gone to her relations in Alabama, where she had identified +herself with the Southern cause, even to the sacrifice of her +private fortune. He had heard her name mentioned in the Southern +press as a fascinating society leader, and even coadjutrix of +Southern politicians,--but he had no reason to believe that she had +taken so active or so desperate a part in the struggle. He tried +to think that his uneasiness sprang from his recollection of the +previous treachery of Captain Pinckney, and the part that she had +played in the Californian conspiracy, although he had long since +acquitted her of the betrayal of any nearer trust. But there was a +fateful similarity in the two cases. There was no doubt that this +Lieutenant Wainwright was a traitor in the camp,--that he had +succumbed to the usual sophistry of his class in regard to his +superior allegiance to his native State. But was there the +inducement of another emotion, or was the photograph only the +souvenir of a fascinating priestess of rebellion, whom the dead man +had met? There was perhaps less of feeling than scorn in the first +suggestion, but he was nevertheless relieved when the provost +marshal found no other incriminating papers in Wainwright's +effects. Nor did he reveal to the division general the finding of +the photograph. It was sufficient to disclose the work of the +traitor without adding what might be a clue to his wife's +participation in it, near or remote. There was risk enough in the +former course,--which his duty made imperative. He hardly dared to +think of the past day's slaughter, which--there was no doubt now-- +had been due to the previous work of the spy, and how his brigade +had been selected--by the irony of Fate--to suffer for and yet +retrieve it. If she had had a hand in this wicked plot, ought he +to spare her? Or was his destiny and hers to be thus monstrously +linked together? + +Luckily, however, the expiation of the chief offender and the +timely discovery of his papers enabled the division commander to +keep the affair discreetly silent, and to enjoin equal secrecy on +the part of Brant. The latter, however, did not relax his +vigilance, and after the advance the next day he made a minute +inspection of the ground he was to occupy, its approaches and +connections with the outlying country, and the rebel lines; +increased the stringency of picket and sentry regulations, and +exercised a rigid surveillance of non-combatants and civilians +within the lines, even to the lowest canteener or camp follower. +Then he turned his attention to the house he was to occupy as his +headquarters. + +It was a fine specimen of the old colonial planter's house, with +its broad veranda, its great detached offices and negro quarters, +and had, thus far, escaped the ravages and billeting of the war. +It had been occupied by its owner up to a few days before the +engagement, and so great had been the confidence of the enemy in +their success that it had been used as the Confederate headquarters +on the morning of the decisive battle. Jasmine and rose, unstained +by the sulphur of gunpowder, twined around its ruined columns and +half hid the recessed windows; the careless flower garden was still +in its unkempt and unplucked luxuriance; the courtyard before the +stables alone showed marks of the late military occupancy, and was +pulverized by the uneasy horse-hoofs of the waiting staff. But the +mingled impress of barbaric prodigality with patriarchal simplicity +was still there in the domestic arrangements of a race who lived on +half equal familiarity with strangers and their own servants. + +The negro servants still remained, with a certain cat-like fidelity +to the place, and adapted themselves to the Northern invaders with +a childlike enjoyment of the novelty of change. Brant, nevertheless, +looked them over with an experienced eye, and satisfied himself of +their trustworthiness; there was the usual number of "boys," +gray-haired and grizzled in body service, and the "mammys" and +"aunties" of the kitchen. There were two or three rooms in the wing +which still contained private articles, pictures and souvenirs of +the family, and a "young lady's" boudoir, which Brant, with +characteristic delicacy, kept carefully isolated and intact from his +military household, and accessible only to the family servants. The +room he had selected for himself was nearest it,--a small, plainly +furnished apartment, with an almost conventual simplicity in its +cold, white walls and draperies, and the narrow, nun-like bed. It +struck him that it might have belonged to some prim elder daughter +or maiden aunt, who had acted as housekeeper, as it commanded the +wing and servants' offices, with easy access to the central hall. + +There followed a week of inactivity in which Brant felt a singular +resemblance in this Southern mansion to the old casa at Robles. +The afternoon shadows of the deep verandas recalled the old +monastic gloom of the Spanish house, which even the presence of a +lounging officer or waiting orderly could not entirely dissipate, +and the scent of the rose and jasmine from his windows overcame him +with sad memories. He began to chafe under this inaction, and long +again for the excitement of the march and bivouac, in which, for +the past four years, he had buried his past. + +He was sitting one afternoon alone before his reports and +dispatches, when this influence seemed so strong that he half +impulsively laid them aside to indulge in along reverie. He was +recalling his last day at Robles, the early morning duel with +Pinckney, the return to San Francisco, and the sudden resolution +which sent him that day across the continent to offer his services +to the Government. He remembered his delay in the Western town, +where a volunteer regiment was being recruited, his entrance into +it as a private, his rapid selection, through the force of his +sheer devotion and intelligent concentration, to the captaincy of +his company; his swift promotion on hard-fought fields to the head +of the regiment, and the singular success that had followed his +resistless energy, which left him no time to think of anything but +his duty. The sudden intrusion of his wife upon his career now, +even in this accidental and perhaps innocent way, had seriously +unsettled him. + +The shadows were growing heavier and deeper, it lacked only a few +moments of the sunset bugle, when he was recalled to himself by +that singular instinctive consciousness, common to humanity, of +being intently looked at. He turned quickly,--the door behind him +closed softly. He rose and slipped into the hall. The tall figure +of a woman was going down the passage. She was erect and graceful; +but, as she turned towards the door leading to the offices, he +distinctly saw the gaudily turbaned head and black silhouette of a +negress. Nevertheless, he halted a moment at the door of the next +room. + +"See who that woman is who has just passed, Mr. Martin. She +doesn't seem to belong to the house." + +The young officer rose, put on his cap, and departed. In a few +moments he returned. + +"Was she tall, sir, of a good figure, and very straight?" + +"Yes." + +"She is a servant of our neighbors, the Manlys, who occasionally +visits the servants here. A mulatto, I think." + +Brant reflected. Many of the mulattoes and negresses were of good +figure, and the habit of carrying burdens on their heads gave them +a singularly erect carriage. + +The lieutenant looked at his chief. + +"Have you any orders to give concerning her, General?" + +"No," said Brant, after a moment's pause, and turned away. + +The officer smiled. It seemed a good story to tell at mess of this +human weakness of his handsome, reserved, and ascetic-looking +leader. + +A few mornings afterwards Brant was interrupted over his reports by +the almost abrupt entrance of the officer of the day. His face was +flushed, and it was evident that only the presence of his superior +restrained his excitement. He held a paper in his hand. + +"A lady presents this order and pass from Washington, countersigned +by the division general." + +"A lady?" + +"Yes, sir, she is dressed as such. But she has not only declined +the most ordinary civilities and courtesies we have offered her, +but she has insulted Mr. Martin and myself grossly, and demands to +be shown to you--alone." + +Brant took the paper. It was a special order from the President, +passing Miss Matilda Faulkner through the Federal lines to visit +her uncle's home, known as "Gray Oaks," now held and occupied as +the headquarters of Brant's Brigade, in order to arrange for the +preservation and disposal of certain family effects and private +property that still remained there, or to take and carry away such +property; and invoking all necessary aid and assistance from the +United States forces in such occupancy. It was countersigned by +the division commander. It was perfectly regular and of undoubted +authenticity. He had heard of passes of this kind,--the terror of +the army,--issued in Washington under some strange controlling +influence and against military protest; but he did not let his +subordinate see the uneasiness with which it filled him. + +"Show her in," he said quietly. + +But she had already entered, brushing scornfully past the officer, +and drawing her skirt aside, as if contaminated: a very pretty +Southern girl, scornful and red-lipped, clad in a gray riding- +habit, and still carrying her riding-whip clenched ominously in her +slim, gauntleted hand! + +"You have my permit in your hand," she said brusquely, hardly +raising her eyes to Brant. "I suppose it's all straight enough,-- +and even if it isn't, I don't reckon to be kept waiting with those +hirelings." + +"Your 'permit' is 'straight' enough, Miss Faulkner," said Brant, +slowly reading her name from the document before him. "But, as it +does not seem to include permission to insult my officers, you will +perhaps allow them first to retire." + +He made a sign to the officer, who passed out of the door. + +As it closed, he went on, in a gentle but coldly unimpassioned +voice,-- + +"I perceive you are a Southern lady, and therefore I need not +remind you that it is not considered good form to treat even the +slaves of those one does not like uncivilly, and I must, therefore, +ask you to keep your active animosity for myself." + +The young girl lifted her eyes. She had evidently not expected to +meet a man so young, so handsome, so refined, and so coldly +invincible in manner. Still less was she prepared for that kind of +antagonism. In keeping up her preconcerted attitude towards the +"Northern hireling," she had been met with official brusqueness, +contemptuous silence, or aggrieved indignation,--but nothing so +exasperating as this. She even fancied that this elegant but +sardonic-looking soldier was mocking her. She bit her red lip, +but, with a scornful gesture of her riding-whip, said,-- + +"I reckon that your knowledge of Southern ladies is, for certain +reasons, not very extensive." + +"Pardon me; I have had the honor of marrying one." + +Apparently more exasperated than before, she turned upon him +abruptly. + +"You say my pass is all right. Then I presume I may attend to the +business that brought me here." + +"Certainly; but you will forgive me if I imagined that an +expression of contempt for your hosts was a part of it." + +He rang a bell on the table. It was responded to by an orderly. + +"Send all the household servants here." + +The room was presently filled with the dusky faces of the negro +retainers. Here and there was the gleaming of white teeth, but a +majority of the assembly wore the true negro serious acceptance of +the importance of "an occasion." One or two even affected an +official and soldierly bearing. And, as he fully expected, there +were several glances of significant recognition of the stranger. + +"You will give," said Brant sternly, "every aid and attention to +the wants of this young lady, who is here to represent the +interests of your old master. As she will be entirely dependent +upon you in all things connected with her visit here, see to it +that she does not have to complain to me of any inattention,--or be +obliged to ask for other assistance." + +As Miss Faulkner, albeit a trifle paler in the cheek, but as +scornful as ever, was about to follow the servants from the room, +Brant stopped her, with a coldly courteous gesture. + +"You will understand, therefore, Miss Faulkner, that you have your +wish, and that you will not be exposed to any contact with the +members of my military family, nor they with you." + +"Am I then to be a prisoner in this house--and under a free pass of +your--President?" she said indignantly. + +"By no means! You are free to come and go, and see whom you +please. I have no power to control your actions. But I have the +power to control theirs." + +She swept furiously from the room. + +"That is quite enough to fill her with a desire to flirt with every +man here," said Brant to himself, with a faint smile; "but I fancy +they have had a taste enough of her quality." + +Nevertheless he sat down and wrote a few lines to the division +commander, pointing out that he had already placed the owner's +private property under strict surveillance, that it was cared for +and perfectly preserved by the household servants, and that the +pass was evidently obtained as a subterfuge. + +To this he received a formal reply, regretting that the authorities +at Washington still found it necessary to put this kind of risk and +burden on the army in the field, but that the order emanated from +the highest authority, and must be strictly obeyed. At the bottom +of the page was a characteristic line in pencil in the general's +own hand--"Not the kind that is dangerous." + +A flush mounted Brant's cheeks, as if it contained not only a +hidden, but a personal significance. He had thought of his own +wife! + +Singularly enough, a day or two later, at dinner, the conversation +turned upon the intense sectional feeling of Southern women, +probably induced by their late experiences. Brant, at the head of +the table, in his habitual abstraction, was scarcely following the +somewhat excited diction of Colonel Strangeways, one of his staff. + +"No, sir," reiterated that indignant warrior, "take my word for it! +A Southern woman isn't to be trusted on this point, whether as a +sister, sweetheart, or wife. And when she is trusted, she's bound +to get the better of the man in any of those relations!" + +The dead silence that followed, the ominous joggle of a glass at +the speaker's elbow, the quick, sympathetic glance that Brant +instinctively felt was directed at his own face, and the abrupt +change of subject, could not but arrest his attention, even if he +had overlooked the speech. His face, however, betrayed nothing. +It had never, however, occurred to him before that his family +affairs might be known--neither had he ever thought of keeping them +a secret. It seemed so purely a personal and private misfortune, +that he had never dreamed of its having any public interest. And +even now he was a little ashamed of what he believed was his +sensitiveness to mere conventional criticism, which, with the +instinct of a proud man, he had despised. + +He was not far wrong in his sardonic intuition of the effect of his +prohibition upon Miss Faulkner's feelings. Certainly that young +lady, when not engaged in her mysterious occupation of arranging +her uncle's effects, occasionally was seen in the garden, and in +the woods beyond. Although her presence was the signal for the +"oblique" of any lounging "shoulder strap," or the vacant "front" +of a posted sentry, she seemed to regard their occasional proximity +with less active disfavor. Once, when she had mounted the wall to +gather a magnolia blossom, the chair by which she had ascended +rolled over, leaving her on the wall. At a signal from the guard- +room, two sappers and miners appeared carrying a scaling-ladder, +which they placed silently against the wall, and as silently +withdrew. On another occasion, the same spirited young lady, whom +Brant was satisfied would have probably imperiled her life under +fire in devotion to her cause, was brought ignominiously to bay in +the field by that most appalling of domestic animals, the wandering +and untrammeled cow! Brant could not help smiling as he heard the +quick, harsh call to "Turn out, guard," saw the men march stolidly +with fixed bayonets to the vicinity of the affrighted animal, who +fled, leaving the fair stranger to walk shamefacedly to the house. +He was surprised, however, that she should have halted before his +door, and with tremulous indignation, said,-- + +"I thank you, sir, for your chivalrousness in turning a defenseless +woman into ridicule." + +"I regret, Miss Faulkner," began Brant gravely, "that you should +believe that I am able to control the advances of farmyard cattle +as easily as"-- But he stopped, as he saw that the angry flash of +her blue eyes, as she darted past him, was set in tears. A little +remorseful on the following day, he added a word to his ordinary +cap-lifting when she went by, but she retained a reproachful +silence. Later in the day, he received from her servant a +respectful request for an interview, and was relieved to find that +she entered his presence with no trace of her former aggression, +but rather with the resignation of a deeply injured, yet not +entirely unforgiving, woman. + +"I thought," she began coldly, "that I ought to inform you that I +would probably be able to conclude my business here by the day +after to-morrow, and that you would then be relieved of my +presence. I am aware--indeed," she added, bitterly, "I could +scarcely help perceiving, that it has been an exceedingly irksome +one." + +"I trust," began Brant coldly, "that no gentleman of my command +has"-- + +"No!" + +She interrupted him quickly, with a return of her former manner, +and a passionate sweep of the hand. + +"Do you suppose for a moment that I am speaking--that I am even +thinking--of them? What are they to me?" + +"Thank you. I am glad to know that they are nothing; and that I +may now trust that you have consulted my wishes, and have reserved +your animosity solely for me," returned Brant quietly. "That being +so, I see no reason for your hurrying your departure in the least." + +She rose instantly. + +"I have," she said slowly, controlling herself with a slight +effort, "found some one who will take my duty off my hands. She is +a servant of one of your neighbors,--who is an old friend of my +uncle's. The woman is familiar with the house, and our private +property. I will give her full instructions to act for me, and +even an authorization in writing, if you prefer it. She is already +in the habit of coming here; but her visits will give you very +little trouble. And, as she is a slave, or, as you call it, I +believe, a chattel, she will be already quite accustomed to the +treatment which her class are in the habit of receiving from +Northern hands." + +Without waiting to perceive the effect of her Parthian shot, she +swept proudly out of the room. + +"I wonder what she means," mused Brant, as her quick step died away +in the passage. "One thing is certain,--a woman like that is +altogether too impulsive for a spy." + +Later, in the twilight, he saw her walking in the garden. There +was a figure at her side. A little curious, he examined it more +closely from his window. It was already familiar to him,--the +erect, shapely form of his neighbor's servant. A thoughtful look +passed over his face as he muttered,--"So this is to be her +deputy." + + +CHAPTER III. + + +Called to a general council of officers at divisional headquarters +the next day, Brant had little time for further speculation +regarding his strange guest, but a remark from the division +commander, that he preferred to commit the general plan of a +movement then under discussion to their memories rather than to +written orders in the ordinary routine, seemed to show that his +chief still suspected the existence of a spy. He, therefore, told +him of his late interview with Miss Faulkner, and her probable +withdrawal in favor of a mulatto neighbor. The division commander +received the information with indifference. + +"They're much too clever to employ a hussy like that, who shows her +hand at every turn, either as a spy or a messenger of spies,--and +the mulattoes are too stupid, to say nothing of their probable +fidelity to us. No, General, if we are watched, it is by an eagle, +and not a mocking-bird. Miss Faulkner has nothing worse about her +than her tongue; and there isn't the nigger blood in the whole South +that would risk a noose for her, or for any of their masters or +mistresses!" + +It was, therefore, perhaps, with some mitigation of his usual +critical severity that he saw her walking before him alone in the +lane as he rode home to quarters. She was apparently lost in a +half-impatient, half-moody reverie, which even the trotting hoof- +beats of his own and his orderly's horse had not disturbed. From +time to time she struck the myrtle hedge beside her with the head +of a large flower which hung by its stalk from her listless hands, +or held it to her face as if to inhale its perfume. Dismissing his +orderly by a side path, he rode gently forward, but, to his +surprise, without turning, or seeming to be aware of his presence, +she quickened her pace, and even appeared to look from side to side +for some avenue of escape. If only to mend matters, he was obliged +to ride quickly forward to her side, where he threw himself from +his horse, flung the reins on his arm, and began to walk beside +her. She at first turned a slightly flushed cheek away from him, +and then looked up with a purely simulated start of surprise. + +"I am afraid," he said gently, "that I am the first to break my own +orders in regard to any intrusion on your privacy. But I wanted to +ask you if I could give you any aid whatever in the change you +think of making." + +He was quite sincere,--had been touched by her manifest disturbance, +and, despite his masculine relentlessness of criticism, he had an +intuition of feminine suffering that was in itself feminine. + +"Meaning, that you are in a hurry to get rid of me," she said +curtly, without raising her eyes. + +"Meaning that I only wish to expedite a business which I think is +unpleasant to you, but which I believe you have undertaken from +unselfish devotion." + +The scant expression of a reserved nature is sometimes more +attractive to women than the most fluent vivacity. Possibly there +was also a melancholy grace in this sardonic soldier's manner that +affected her, for she looked up, and said impulsively,-- + +"You think so?" + +But he met her eager eyes with some surprise. + +"I certainly do," he replied more coldly. "I can imagine your +feelings on finding your uncle's home in the possession of your +enemies, and your presence under the family roof only a sufferance. +I can hardly believe it a pleasure to you, or a task you would have +accepted for yourself alone." + +"But," she said, turning towards him wickedly, "what if I did it +only to excite my revenge; what if I knew it would give me courage +to incite my people to carry war into your own homes; to make you +of the North feel as I feel, and taste our bitterness?" + +"I could easily understand that, too," he returned, with listless +coldness, "although I don't admit that revenge is an unmixed +pleasure, even to a woman." + +"A woman!" she repeated indignantly. "There is no sex in a war +like this." + +"You are spoiling your flower," he said quietly. "It is very +pretty, and a native one, too; not an invader, or even transplanted. +May I look at it?" + +She hesitated, half recoiling for an instant, and her hand +trembled. Then, suddenly and abruptly she said, with a hysteric +little laugh, "Take it, then," and almost thrust it in his hand. + +It certainly was a pretty flower, not unlike a lily in appearance, +with a bell-like cup and long anthers covered with a fine pollen, +like red dust. As he lifted it to his face, to inhale its perfume, +she uttered a slight cry, and snatched it from his hand. + +"There!" she said, with the same nervous laugh. "I knew you would; +I ought to have warned you. The pollen comes off so easily, and +leaves a stain. And you've got some on your cheek. Look!" she +continued, taking her handkerchief from her pocket and wiping his +cheek; "see there!" The delicate cambric showed a blood-red +streak. + +"It grows in a swamp," she continued, in the same excited strain; +"we call it dragon's teeth,--like the kind that was sown in the +story, you know. We children used to find it, and then paint our +faces and lips with it. We called it our rouge. I was almost +tempted to try it again when I found it just now. It took me back +so to the old times." + +Following her odd manner rather than her words, as she turned her +face towards him suddenly, Brant was inclined to think that she had +tried it already, so scarlet was her cheek. But it presently paled +again under his cold scrutiny. + +"You must miss the old times," he said calmly. "I am afraid you +found very little of them left, except in these flowers." + +"And hardly these," she said bitterly. "Your troops had found a +way through the marsh, and had trampled down the bushes." + +Brant's brow clouded. He remembered that the brook, which had run +red during the fight, had lost itself in this marsh. It did not +increase his liking for this beautiful but blindly vicious animal +at his side, and even his momentary pity for her was fading fast. +She was incorrigible. They walked on for a few moments in silence. + +"You said," she began at last, in a gentler and even hesitating +voice, "that your wife was a Southern woman." + +He checked an irritated start with difficulty. + +"I believe I did," he said coldly, as if he regretted it. + +"And of course you taught her YOUR gospel,--the gospel according to +St. Lincoln. Oh, I know," she went on hurriedly, as if conscious +of his irritation and seeking to allay it. "She was a woman and +loved you, and thought with your thoughts and saw only with your +eyes. Yes, that's the way with us,--I suppose we all do it!" she +added bitterly. + +"She had her own opinions," said Brant briefly, as he recovered +himself. + +Nevertheless, his manner so decidedly closed all further discussion +that there was nothing left for the young girl but silence. But it +was broken by her in a few moments in her old contemptuous voice +and manner. + +"Pray don't trouble yourself to accompany me any further, General +Brant. Unless, of course, you are afraid I may come across some of +your--your soldiers. I promise you I won't eat them." + +"I am afraid you must suffer my company a little longer, Miss +Faulkner, on account of those same soldiers," returned Brant +gravely. "You may not know that this road, in which I find you, +takes you through a cordon of pickets. If you were alone you would +be stopped, questioned, and, failing to give the password, you +would be detained, sent to the guard-house, and"--he stopped, and +fixed his eyes on her keenly as he added, "and searched." + +"You would not dare to search a woman!" she said indignantly, +although her flush gave way to a slight pallor. + +"You said just now that there should be no sex in a war like this," +returned Brant carelessly, but without abating his scrutinizing +gaze. + +"Then it IS war?" she said quickly, with a white, significant face. + +His look of scrutiny turned to one of puzzled wonder. But at the +same moment there was the flash of a bayonet in the hedge, a voice +called "Halt!" and a soldier stepped into the road. + +General Brant advanced, met the salute of the picket with a few +formal words, and then turned towards his fair companion, as +another soldier and a sergeant joined the group. + +"Miss Faulkner is new to the camp, took the wrong turning, and was +unwittingly leaving the lines when I joined her." He fixed his +eyes intently on her now colorless face, but she did not return his +look. "You will show her the shortest way to quarters," he +continued, to the sergeant, "and should she at any time again lose +her way, you will again conduct her home,--but without detaining or +reporting her." + +He lifted his cap, remounted his horse, and rode away, as the young +girl, with a proud, indifferent step, moved down the road with the +sergeant. A mounted officer passed him and saluted,--it was one of +his own staff. From some strange instinct, he knew that he had +witnessed the scene, and from some equally strange intuition he was +annoyed by it. But he continued his way, visiting one or two +outposts, and returned by a long detour to his quarters. As he +stepped upon the veranda he saw Miss Faulkner at the bottom of the +garden talking with some one across the hedge. By the aid of his +glass he could recognize the shapely figure of the mulatto woman +which he had seen before. But by its aid he also discovered that +she was carrying a flower exactly like the one which Miss Faulkner +still held in her hand. Had she been with Miss Faulkner in the +lane, and if so, why had she disappeared when he came up? Impelled +by something stronger than mere curiosity, he walked quickly down +the garden, but she evidently had noticed him, for she as quickly +disappeared. Not caring to meet Miss Faulkner again, he retraced +his steps, resolving that he would, on the first opportunity, +personally examine and interrogate this new visitor. For if she +were to take Miss Faulkner's place in a subordinate capacity, this +precaution was clearly within his rights. + +He re-entered his room and seated himself at his desk before the +dispatches, orders, and reports awaiting him. He found himself, +however, working half mechanically, and recurring to his late +interview with Miss Faulkner in the lane. If she had any +inclination to act the spy, or to use her position here as a means +of communicating with the enemy's lines, he thought he had +thoroughly frightened her. Nevertheless, now, for the first time, +he was inclined to accept his chief's opinion of her. She was not +only too clumsy and inexperienced, but she totally lacked the self- +restraint of a spy. Her nervous agitation in the lane was due to +something more disturbing than his mere possible intrusion upon her +confidences with the mulatto. The significance of her question, +"Then it IS war?" was at best a threat, and that implied hesitation. +He recalled her strange allusion to his wife; was it merely the +outcome of his own foolish confession on their first interview, or +was it a concealed ironical taunt? Being satisfied, however, that +she was not likely to imperil his public duty in any way, he was +angry with himself for speculating further. But, although he still +felt towards her the same antagonism she had at first provoked, he +was conscious that she was beginning to exercise a strange +fascination over him. + +Dismissing her at last with an effort, he finished his work and +then rose, and unlocking a closet, took out a small dispatch-box, +to which he intended to intrust a few more important orders and +memoranda. As he opened it with a key on his watch-chain, he was +struck with a faint perfume that seemed to come from it,--a perfume +that he remembered. Was it the smell of the flower that Miss +Faulkner carried, or the scent of the handkerchief with which she +had wiped his cheek, or a mingling of both? Or was he under some +spell to think of that wretched girl, and her witch-like flower? +He leaned over the box and suddenly started. Upon the outer +covering of a dispatch was a singular blood-red streak! He examined +it closely,--it was the powdery stain of the lily pollen,--exactly +as he had seen it on her handkerchief. + +There could be no mistake. He passed his finger over the stain; he +could still feel the slippery, infinitesimal powder of the pollen. +It was not there when he had closed the box that morning; it was +impossible that it should be there unless the box had been opened +in his absence. He re-examined the contents of the box; the papers +were all there. More than that, they were papers of no importance +except to him personally; contained no plans nor key to any +military secret; he had been far too wise to intrust any to the +accidents of this alien house. The prying intruder, whoever it +was, had gained nothing! But there was unmistakably the attempt! +And the existence of a would-be spy within the purlieus of the +house was equally clear. + +He called an officer from the next room. + +"Has any one been here since my absence?" + +"No, General." + +"Has any one passed through the hall?" + +He had fully anticipated the answer, as the subaltern replied, +"Only the women servants." + +He re-entered the room. Closing the door, he again carefully +examined the box, his table, the papers upon it, the chair before +it, and even the Chinese matting on the floor, for any further +indication of the pollen. It hardly seemed possible that any one +could have entered the room with the flower in their hand without +scattering some of the tell-tale dust elsewhere; it was too large a +flower to be worn on the breast or in the hair. Again, no one +would have dared to linger there long enough to have made an +examination of the box, with an officer in the next room, and the +sergeant passing. The box had been removed, and the examination +made elsewhere! + +An idea seized him. Miss Faulkner was still absent, the mulatto +had apparently gone home. He quickly mounted the staircase, but +instead of entering his room, turned suddenly aside into the wing +which had been reserved. The first door yielded as he turned its +knob gently and entered a room which he at once recognized as the +"young lady's boudoir." But the dusty and draped furniture had +been rearranged and uncovered, and the apartment bore every sign of +present use. Yet, although there was unmistakable evidence of its +being used by a person of taste and refinement, he was surprised to +see that the garments hanging in an open press were such as were +used by negro servants, and that a gaudy handkerchief such as +housemaids used for turbans was lying on the pretty silk coverlet. +He did not linger over these details, but cast a rapid glance round +the room. Then his eyes became fixed on a fanciful writing-desk, +which stood by the window. For, in a handsome vase placed on its +level top, and drooping on a portfolio below, hung a cluster of the +very flowers that Miss Faulkner had carried! + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +It seemed plain to Brant that the dispatch-box had been conveyed +here and opened for security on this desk, and in the hurry of +examining the papers the flower had been jostled and the fallen +grains of pollen overlooked by the spy. There were one or two +freckles of red on the desk, which made this accident appear the +more probable. But he was equally struck by another circumstance. +The desk stood immediately before the window. As he glanced +mechanically from it, he was surprised to see that it commanded an +extensive view of the slope below the eminence on which the house +stood, even beyond his furthest line of pickets. The vase of +flowers, each of which was nearly as large as a magnolia blossom, +and striking in color, occupied a central position before it, and +no doubt could be quite distinctly seen from a distance. From this +circumstance he could not resist the strong impression that this +fateful and extraordinary blossom, carried by Miss Faulkner and the +mulatto, and so strikingly "in evidence" at the window, was in some +way a signal. Obeying an impulse which he was conscious had a half +superstitious foundation, he carefully lifted the vase from its +position before the window, and placed it on a side table. Then he +cautiously slipped from the room. + +But he could not easily shake off the perplexity which the +occurrence had caused, although he was satisfied that it was +fraught with no military or strategic danger to his command, and +that the unknown spy had obtained no information whatever. Yet he +was forced to admit to himself that he was more concerned in his +attempts to justify the conduct of Miss Faulkner with this later +revelation. It was quite possible that the dispatch-box had been +purloined by some one else during her absence from the house, as +the presence of the mulatto servant in his room would have been +less suspicious than hers. There was really little evidence to +connect Miss Faulkner with the actual outrage,--rather might not +the real spy have taken advantage of her visit here, to throw +suspicion upon her? He remembered her singular manner,--the +strange inconsistency with which she had forced this flower upon +him. She would hardly have done so had she been conscious of its +having so serious an import. Yet, what was the secret of her +manifest agitation? A sudden inspiration flashed across his mind; +a smile came upon his lips. She was in love! The enemy's line +contained some sighing Strephon of a young subaltern with whom she +was in communication, and for whom she had undertaken this quest. +The flower was their language of correspondence, no doubt. It +explained also the young girl's animosity against the younger +officers,--his adversaries; against himself,--their commander. He +had previously wondered why, if she were indeed a spy, she had not +chosen, upon some equally specious order from Washington, the +headquarters of the division commander, whose secrets were more +valuable. This was explained by the fact that she was nearer the +lines and her lover in her present abode. He had no idea that he +was making excuses for her,--he believed himself only just. The +recollection of what she had said of the power of love, albeit it +had hurt him cruelly at the time, was now clearer to him, and even +seemed to mitigate her offense. She would be here but a day or two +longer; he could afford to wait without interrogating her. + +But as to the real intruder, spy or thief,--that was another +affair, and quickly settled. He gave an order to the officer of +the day peremptorily forbidding the entrance of alien servants or +slaves within the precincts of the headquarters. Any one thus +trespassing was to be brought before him. The officer looked +surprised, he even fancied disappointed. The graces of the mulatto +woman's figure had evidently not been thrown away upon his +subalterns. + +An hour or two later, when he was mounting his horse for a round of +inspection, he was surprised to see Miss Faulkner, accompanied by +the mulatto woman, running hurriedly to the house. He had +forgotten his late order until he saw the latter halted by the +sentries, but the young girl came flying on, regardless of her +companion. Her skirt was held in one hand, her straw hat had +fallen back in her flight, and was caught only by a ribbon around +her swelling throat, and her loosened hair lay in a black rippled +loop on one shoulder. For an instant Brant thought that she was +seeking him in indignation at his order, but a second look at her +set face, eager eyes, and parted scarlet lips, showed him that she +had not even noticed him in the concentration of her purpose. She +swept by him into the hall, he heard the swish of her skirt and +rapid feet on the stairs,--she was gone. What had happened, or was +this another of her moods? + +But he was called to himself by the apparition of a corporal +standing before him, with the mulatto woman,--the first capture +under his order. She was tall, well-formed, but unmistakably +showing the negro type, even in her small features. Her black eyes +were excited, but unintelligent; her manner dogged, but with the +obstinacy of half-conscious stupidity. Brant felt not only +disappointed, but had a singular impression that she was not the +same woman that he had first seen. Yet there was the tall, +graceful figure, the dark profile, and the turbaned head that he +had once followed down the passage by his room. + +Her story was as stupidly simple. She had known "Missy" from a +chile! She had just traipsed over to see her that afternoon; they +were walking together when the sojers stopped her. She had never +been stopped before, even by "the patter rollers."* Her old massa +(Manly) had gib leaf to go see Miss Tilly, and hadn't said nuffin +about no "orders." + + +* i. e., patrols,--a civic home-guard in the South that kept +surveillance of slaves. + + +More annoyed than he cared to confess, Brant briefly dismissed her +with a warning. As he cantered down the slope the view of the +distant pickets recalled the window in the wing, and he turned in +his saddle to look at it. There it was--the largest and most +dominant window in that part of the building--and within it, a +distinct and vivid object almost filling the opening, was the vase +of flowers, which he had a few hours ago removed, RESTORED TO +ITS ORIGINAL POSITION! He smiled. The hurried entrance and +consternation of Miss Faulkner were now fully explained. He had +interrupted some impassioned message, perhaps even countermanded +some affectionate rendezvous beyond the lines. And it seemed to +settle the fact that it was she who had done the signaling! But +would not this also make her cognizant of the taking of the +dispatch-box? He reflected, however, that the room was apparently +occupied by the mulatto woman--he remembered the calico dresses and +turban on the bed--and it was possible that Miss Faulkner had only +visited it for the purpose of signaling to her lover. Although +this circumstance did not tend to make his mind easier, it was, +however, presently diverted by a new arrival and a strange +recognition. + +As he rode through the camp a group of officers congregated before +a large mess tent appeared to be highly amused by the conversation-- +half monologue and half harangue of a singular-looking individual +who stood in the centre. He wore a "slouch" hat, to the band of +which he had imparted a military air by the addition of a gold +cord, but the brim was caught up at the side in a peculiarly +theatrical and highly artificial fashion. A heavy cavalry sabre +depended from a broad-buckled belt under his black frock coat, with +the addition of two revolvers--minus their holsters--stuck on +either side of the buckle, after the style of a stage smuggler. A +pair of long enameled leather riding boots, with the tops turned +deeply over, as if they had once done duty for the representative +of a cavalier, completed his extraordinary equipment. The group +were so absorbed in him that they did not perceive the approach of +their chief and his orderly; and Brant, with a sign to the latter, +halted only a few paces from this central figure. His speech was a +singular mingling of high-flown and exalted epithets, with inexact +pronunciation and occasional lapses of Western slang. + +"Well, I ain't purtendin' to any stratutegical smartness, and I +didn't gradooate at West Point as one of those Apocryphal +Engineers; I don't do much talking about 'flank' movements or +'recognizances in force' or 'Ekellon skirmishing,' but when it +comes down to square Ingin fightin', I reckon I kin have my say. +There are men who don't know the Army Contractor," he added darkly, +"who mebbe have heard of 'Red Jim.' I don't mention names, +gentlemen, but only the other day a man that you all know says to +me, 'If I only knew what you do about scoutin' I wouldn't be +wanting for information as I do.' I ain't goin' to say who it was, +or break any confidences between gentlemen by saying how many stars +he had on his shoulder strap; but he was a man who knew what he was +saying. And I say agin, gentlemen, that the curse of the Northern +Army is the want of proper scoutin'. What was it caused Bull's +Run?--Want o' scoutin'. What was it rolled up Pope?--Want o' +scoutin'. What caused the slaughter at the Wilderness?--Want o' +scoutin'--Ingin scoutin'! Why, only the other day, gentlemen, I +was approached to know what I'd take to organize a scoutin' force. +And what did I say?--'No, General; it ain't because I represent one +of the largest Army Beef Contracts in this country,' says I. 'It +ain't because I belong, so to speak, to the "Sinews of War;" but +because I'd want about ten thousand trained Ingins from the +Reservations!' And the regular West Point, high-toned, scientific +inkybus that weighs so heavily on our army don't see it--and won't +have it! Then Sherman, he sez to me"-- + +But here a roar of laughter interrupted him, and in the cross fire +of sarcastic interrogations that began Brant saw, with relief, a +chance of escape. For in the voice, manner, and, above all, the +characteristic temperament of the stranger, he had recognized his +old playmate and the husband of Susy,--the redoubtable Jim Hooker! +There was no mistaking that gloomy audacity; that mysterious +significance; that magnificent lying. But even at that moment +Clarence Brant's heart had gone out, with all his old loyalty of +feeling, towards his old companion. He knew that a public +recognition of him then and there would plunge Hooker into +confusion; he felt keenly the ironical plaudits and laughter of his +officers over the manifest weakness and vanity of the ex-teamster, +ex-rancher, ex-actor, and husband of his old girl sweetheart, and +would have spared him the knowledge that he had overheard it. +Turning hastily to the orderly, he bade him bring the stranger to +his headquarters, and rode away unperceived. + +He had heard enough, however, to account for his presence there, +and the singular chance that had brought them again together. He +was evidently one of those large civil contractors of supplies whom +the Government was obliged to employ, who visited the camp half +officially, and whom the army alternately depended upon and abused. +Brant had dealt with his underlings in the Commissariat, and even +now remembered that he had heard he was coming, but had overlooked +the significance of his name. But how he came to leave his +theatrical profession, how he had attained a position which implied +a command of considerable capital--for many of the contractors had +already amassed large fortunes--and what had become of Susy and her +ambitions in this radical change of circumstances, were things +still to be learned. In his own changed conditions he had seldom +thought of her; it was with a strange feeling of irritation and +half responsibility that he now recalled their last interview and +the emotion to which he had yielded. + +He had not long to wait. He had scarcely regained the quarters at +his own private office before he heard the step of the orderly upon +the veranda and the trailing clank of Hooker's sabre. He did not +know, however, that Hooker, without recognizing his name, had +received the message as a personal tribute, and had left his +sarcastic companions triumphantly, with the air of going to a +confidential interview, to which his well-known military criticism +had entitled him. It was with a bearing of gloomy importance and +his characteristic, sullen, sidelong glance that he entered the +apartment and did not look up until Brant had signaled the orderly +to withdraw, and closed the door behind him. And then he recognized +his old boyish companion--the preferred favorite of fortune! + +For a moment he gasped with astonishment. For a moment gloomy +incredulity, suspicion, delight, pride, admiration, even affection, +struggled for mastery in his sullen, staring eyes and open, +twitching mouth. For here was Clarence Brant, handsomer than ever, +more superior than ever, in the majesty of uniform and authority +which fitted him--the younger man--by reason of his four years of +active service, with the careless ease and bearing of the veteran! +Here was the hero whose name was already so famous that the mere +coincidence of it with that of the modest civilian he had known +would have struck him as preposterous. Yet here he was--supreme, +and dazzling--surrounded by the pomp and circumstance of war--into +whose reserved presence he, Jim Hooker, had been ushered with the +formality of challenge, saluting, and presented bayonets! + +Luckily, Brant had taken advantage of his first gratified +ejaculation to shake him warmly by the hand, and then, with both +hands laid familiarly on his shoulder, force him down into a chair. +Luckily, for by that time Jim Hooker had, with characteristic +gloominess, found time to taste the pangs of envy--an envy the more +keen since, in spite of his success as a peaceful contractor, he +had always secretly longed for military display and distinction. +He looked at the man who had achieved it, as he firmly believed, by +sheer luck and accident, and his eyes darkened. Then, with +characteristic weakness and vanity, he began to resist his first +impressions of Clarence's superiority, and to air his own +importance. He leaned heavily back in the chair in which he had +been thus genially forced, drew off his gauntlet and attempted to +thrust it through his belt, as he had seen Brant do, but failed on +account of his pistols already occupying that position, dropped it, +got his sword between his legs in attempting to pick it up, and +then leaned back again, with half-closed eyes serenely indifferent +of his old companion's smiling face. + +"I reckon," he began slowly, with a slightly patronizing air, "that +we'd have met, sooner or later, at Washington, or at Grant's +headquarters, for Hooker, Meacham & Co. go everywhere, and are +about as well known as major-generals, to say nothin'," he went on, +with a sidelong glance at Brant's shoulder-straps, "of brigadiers; +and it's rather strange--only, of course, you're kind of fresh in +the service--that you ain't heard of me afore." + +"But I'm very glad to hear of you now, Jim," said Brant, smiling, +"and from your own lips--which I am also delighted to find," he +added mischievously, "are still as frankly communicative on that +topic as of old. But I congratulate you, old fellow, on your good +fortune. When did you leave the stage?" + +Mr. Hooker frowned slightly. + +"I never was really on the stage, you know," he said, waving his +hand with assumed negligence. "Only went on to please my wife. +Mrs. Hooker wouldn't act with vulgar professionals, don't you see! +I was really manager most of the time, and lessee of the theatre. +Went East when the war broke out, to offer my sword and knowledge +of Ingin fightin' to Uncle Sam! Drifted into a big pork contract +at St. Louis, with Fremont. Been at it ever since. Offered a +commission in the reg'lar service lots o' times. Refused." + +"Why?" asked Brant demurely. + +"Too much West Point starch around to suit ME," returned Hooker +darkly. "And too many spies!" + +"Spies?" echoed Brant abstractedly, with a momentary reminiscence +of Miss Faulkner. + +"Yes, spies," continued Hooker, with dogged mystery. "One half of +Washington is watching t'other half, and, from the President's wife +down, most of the women are secesh!" + +Brant suddenly fixed his keen eyes on his guest. But the next +moment he reflected that this was only Jim Hooker's usual speech, +and possessed no ulterior significance. He smiled again, and said, +more gently,-- + +"And how is Mrs. Hooker?" + +Mr. Hooker fixed his eyes on the ceiling, rose, and pretended to +look out of the window; then, taking his seat again by the table, +as if fronting an imaginary audience, and pulling slowly at his +gauntlets after the usual theatrical indication of perfect +sangfroid, said,-- + +"There ain't any!" + +"Good heavens!" said Brant, with genuine emotion. "I beg your +pardon. Really, I"-- + +"Mrs. Hooker and me are divorced," continued Hooker, slightly +changing his attitude, and leaning heavily on his sabre, with his +eyes still on his fanciful audience. "There was, you understand"-- +lightly tossing his gauntlet aside--"incompatibility of temper-- +and--we--parted! Ha!" + +He uttered a low, bitter, scornful laugh, which, however, produced +the distinct impression in Brant's mind that up to that moment he +had never had the slightest feeling in the matter whatever. + +"You seemed to be on such good terms with each other!" murmured +Brant vaguely. + +"Seemed!" said Hooker bitterly, glancing sardonically at an ideal +second row in the pit before him, "yes--seemed! There were other +differences, social and political. You understand that; you have +suffered, too." He reached out his hand and pressed Brant's, in +heavy effusiveness. "But," he continued haughtily, lightly tossing +his glove again, "we are also men of the world; we let that pass." + +And it was possible that he found the strain of his present +attitude too great, for he changed to an easier position. + +"But," said Brant curiously, "I always thought that Mrs. Hooker was +intensely Union and Northern?" + +"Put on!" said Hooker, in his natural voice. + +"But you remember the incident of the flag?" persisted Brant. + +"Mrs. Hooker was always an actress," said Hooker significantly. +"But," he added cheerfully, "Mrs. Hooker is now the wife of Senator +Boompointer, one of the wealthiest and most powerful Republicans in +Washington--carries the patronage of the whole West in his vest +pocket." + +"Yet, if she is not a Republican, why did she"--began Brant. + +"For a purpose," replied Hooker darkly. "But," he added again, +with greater cheerfulness, "she belongs to the very elite of +Washington society. Goes to all the foreign ambassadors' balls, +and is a power at the White House. Her picture is in all the +first-class illustrated papers." + +The singular but unmistakable pride of the man in the importance of +the wife from whom he was divorced, and for whom he did not care, +would have offended Brant's delicacy, or at least have excited his +ridicule, but for the reason that he was more deeply stung by +Hooker's allusion to his own wife and his degrading similitude of +their two conditions. But he dismissed the former as part of +Hooker's invincible and still boyish extravagance, and the latter +as part of his equally characteristic assumption. Perhaps he was +conscious, too, notwithstanding the lapse of years and the +condonation of separation and forgetfulness, that he deserved +little delicacy from the hands of Susy's husband. Nevertheless, he +dreaded to hear him speak again of her; and the fear was realized +in a question. + +"Does she know you are here?" + +"Who?" said Brant curtly. + +"Your wife. That is--I reckon she's your wife still, eh?" + +"Yes; but I do not know what she knows," returned Brant quietly. +He had regained his self-composure. + +"Susy,--Mrs. Senator Boompointer, that is,"--said Hooker, with an +apparent dignity in his late wife's new title, "allowed that she'd +gone abroad on a secret mission from the Southern Confederacy to +them crowned heads over there. She was good at ropin' men in, you +know. Anyhow, Susy, afore she was Mrs. Boompointer, was dead set +on findin' out where she was, but never could. She seemed to drop +out of sight a year ago. Some said one thing, and some said +another. But you can bet your bottom dollar that Mrs. Senator +Boompointer, who knows how to pull all the wires in Washington, +will know, if any one does." + +"But is Mrs. Boompointer really disaffected, and a Southern +sympathizer?" said Brant, "or is it only caprice or fashion?" + +While speaking he had risen, with a half-abstracted face, and had +gone to the window, where he stood in a listening attitude. +Presently he opened the window, and stepped outside. Hooker +wonderingly followed him. One or two officers had already stepped +out of their rooms, and were standing upon the veranda; another had +halted in the path. Then one quickly re-entered the house, +reappeared with his cap and sword in his hand, and ran lightly +toward the guard-house. A slight crackling noise seemed to come +from beyond the garden wall. + +"What's up?" said Hooker, with staring eyes. + +"Picket firing!" + +The crackling suddenly became a long rattle. Brant re-entered the +room, and picked up his hat. + +"You'll excuse me for a few moments." + +A faint sound, soft yet full, and not unlike a bursting bubble, +made the house appear to leap elastically, like the rebound of a +rubber ball. + +"What's that?" gasped Hooker. + +"Cannon, out of range!" + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +In another instant bugles were ringing through the camp, with the +hurrying hoofs of mounted officers and the trampling of forming +men. The house itself was almost deserted. Although the single +cannon-shot had been enough to show that it was no mere skirmishing +of pickets, Brant still did not believe in any serious attack of +the enemy. His position, as in the previous engagement, had no +strategic importance to them; they were no doubt only making a +feint against it to conceal some advance upon the centre of the +army two miles away. Satisfied that he was in easy supporting +distance of his division commander, he extended his line along the +ridge, ready to fall back in that direction, while retarding their +advance and masking the position of his own chief. He gave a few +orders necessary to the probable abandonment of the house, and then +returned to it. Shot and shell were already dropping in the field +below. A thin ridge of blue haze showed the line of skirmish fire. +A small conical, white cloud, like a bursting cotton-pod, revealed +an open battery in the willow-fringed meadow. Yet the pastoral +peacefulness of the house was unchanged. The afternoon sun lay +softly on its deep verandas; the pot pourri incense of fallen rose- +leaves haunted it still. + +He entered his room through the French window on the veranda, when +the door leading from the passage was suddenly flung open, and Miss +Faulkner swept quickly inside, closed the door behind her, and +leaned back against it, panting and breathless. + +Clarence was startled, and for a moment ashamed. He had suddenly +realized that in the excitement he had entirely forgotten her and +the dangers to which she might be exposed. She had probably heard +the firing, her womanly fears had been awakened; she had come to +him for protection. But as he turned towards her with a reassuring +smile, he was shocked to see that her agitation and pallor were far +beyond any physical cause. She motioned him desperately to shut +the window by which he had entered, and said, with white lips,-- + +"I must speak with you alone!" + +"Certainly. But there is no immediate danger to you even here--and +I can soon put you beyond the reach of any possible harm." + +"Harm--to me! God! if it were only that!" + +He stared at her uneasily. + +"Listen," she said gaspingly, "listen to me! Then hate, despise +me--kill me if you will. For you are betrayed and ruined--cut off +and surrounded! It has been helped on by me, but I swear to you +the blow did not come from MY hand. I would have saved you. God +only knows how it happened--it was Fate!" + +In an instant Brant saw the whole truth instinctively and clearly. +But with the revelation came the usual calmness and perfect self- +possession which never yet had failed him in any emergency. With +the sound of the increasing cannonade and its shifting position +made clearer to his ears, the view of his whole threatened position +spread out like a map before his eyes, the swift calculation of the +time his men could hold the ridge in his mind--even a hurried +estimate of the precious moments he could give to the wretched +woman before him--he even then, gravely and gently, led her to a +chair and said in a calm voice,-- + +"That is not enough! Speak slowly, plainly. I must know +everything. How and in what way have you betrayed me?" + +She looked at him imploringly--reassured, yet awed by his +gentleness. + +"You won't believe me; you cannot believe me! for I do not even +know. I have taken and exchanged letters--whose contents I never +saw--between the Confederates and a spy who comes to this house, +but who is far away by this time. I did it because I thought you +hated and despised me because I thought it was my duty to help my +cause--because you said it was 'war' between us--but I never spied +on you. I swear it." + +"Then how do you know of this attack?" he said calmly. + +She brightened, half timidly, half hopefully. + +"There is a window in the wing of this house that overlooks the +slope near the Confederate lines. There was a signal placed in it-- +not by me--but I know it meant that as long as it was there the +plot, whatever it was, was not ripe, and that no attack would be +made on you as long as it was visible. That much I know,--that +much the spy had to tell me, for we both had to guard that room in +turns. I wanted to keep this dreadful thing off--until"--her voice +trembled, "until," she added hurriedly, seeing his calm eyes were +reading her very soul, "until I went away--and for that purpose I +withheld some of the letters that were given me. But this morning, +while I was away from the house, I looked back and saw that the +signal was no longer there. Some one had changed it. I ran back, +but I was too late--God help me!--as you see." + +The truth flashed upon Brant. It was his own hand that had +precipitated the attack. But a larger truth came to him now, like +a dazzling inspiration. If he had thus precipitated the attack +before they were ready, there was a chance that it was imperfect, +and there was still hope. But there was no trace of this visible +in his face as he fixed his eyes calmly on hers, although his +pulses were halting in expectancy as he said-- + +"Then the spy had suspected you, and changed it." + +"Oh, no," she said eagerly, "for the spy was with me and was +frightened too. We both ran back together--you remember--she was +stopped by the patrol!" + +She checked herself suddenly, but too late. Her cheeks blazed, her +head sank, with the foolish identification of the spy into which +her eagerness had betrayed her. + +But Brant appeared not to notice it. He was, in fact, puzzling his +brain to conceive what information the stupid mulatto woman could +have obtained here. His strength, his position was no secret to +the enemy--there was nothing to gain from him. She must have been, +like the trembling, eager woman before him, a mere tool of others. + +"Did this woman live here?" he said. + +"No," she said. "She lived with the Manlys, but had friends whom +she visited at your general's headquarters." + +With difficulty Brant suppressed a start. It was clear to him now. +The information had been obtained at the division headquarters, and +passed through his camp as being nearest the Confederate lines. +But what was the information--and what movement had he precipitated? +It was clear that this woman did not know. He looked at her keenly. +A sudden explosion shook the house,--a drift of smoke passed the +window,--a shell had burst in the garden. + +She had been gazing at him despairingly, wistfully--but did not +blanch or start. + +An idea took possession of him. He approached her, and took her +cold hand. A half-smile parted her pale lips. + +"You have courage--you have devotion," he said gravely. "I believe +you regret the step you have taken. If you could undo what you +have done, even at peril to yourself, dare you do it?" + +"Yes," she said breathlessly. + +"You are known to the enemy. If I am surrounded, you could pass +through their lines unquestioned?" + +"Yes," she said eagerly. + +"A note from me would pass you again through the pickets of our +headquarters. But you would bear a note to the general that no +eyes but his must see. It would not implicate you or yours; would +only be a word of warning." + +"And you," she said quickly, "would be saved! They would come to +your assistance! You would not then be taken?" + +He smiled gently. + +"Perhaps--who knows!" + +He sat down and wrote hurriedly. + +"This," he said, handing her a slip of paper, "is a pass. You will +use it beyond your own lines. This note," he continued, handing +her a sealed envelope, "is for the general. No one else must see +it or know of it--not even your lover, should you meet him!" + +"My lover!" she said indignantly, with a flash of her old savagery; +"what do you mean? I have no lover!" + +Brant glanced at her flushed face. + +"I thought," he said quietly, "that there was some one you cared +for in yonder lines--some one you wrote to. It would have been an +excuse"-- + +He stopped, as her face paled again, and her hands dropped heavily +at her side. + +"Good God!--you thought that, too! You thought that I would +sacrifice you for another man!" + +"Pardon me," said Brant quickly. "I was foolish. But whether your +lover is a man or a cause, you have shown a woman's devotion. And, +in repairing your fault, you are showing more than a woman's +courage now." + +To his surprise, the color had again mounted her pretty cheeks, and +even a flash of mischief shone in her blue eyes. + +"It would have been an excuse," she murmured, "yes--to save a man, +surely!" Then she said quickly, "I will go. At once! I am +ready!" + +"One moment," he said gravely. "Although this pass and an escort +insure your probable safe conduct, this is 'war' and danger! You +are still a spy! Are you ready to go?" + +"I am," she said proudly, tossing back a braid of her fallen hair. +Yet a moment after she hesitated. Then she said, in a lower voice, +"Are you ready to forgive?" + +"In either case," he said, touched by her manner; "and God speed +you!" + +He extended his hand, and left a slight pressure on her cold +fingers. But they slipped quickly from his grasp, and she turned +away with a heightened color. + +He stepped to the door. One or two aides-de-camp, withheld by his +order against intrusion, were waiting eagerly with reports. The +horse of a mounted field officer was pawing the garden turf. The +officers stared at the young girl. + +"Take Miss Faulkner, with a flag, to some safe point of the enemy's +line. She is a non-combatant of their own, and will receive their +protection." + +He had scarcely exchanged a dozen words with the aides-de-camp +before the field officer hurriedly entered. Taking Brant aside, he +said quickly,-- + +"Pardon me, General; but there is a strong feeling among the men +that this attack is the result of some information obtained by the +enemy. You must know that the woman you have just given a +safeguard to is suspected, and the men are indignant." + +"The more reason why she should be conveyed beyond any consequences +of their folly, Major," said Brant frigidly, "and I look to you for +her safe convoy. There is nothing in this attack to show that the +enemy has received any information regarding us. But I would +suggest that it would be better to see that my orders are carried +out regarding the slaves and non-combatants who are passing our +lines from divisional headquarters, where valuable information may +be obtained, than in the surveillance of a testy and outspoken +girl." + +An angry flush crossed the major's cheek as he saluted and fell +back, and Brant turned to the aide-de-camp. The news was grave. +The column of the enemy was moving against the ridge--it was no +longer possible to hold it--and the brigade was cut off from its +communication with the divisional headquarters, although as yet no +combined movement was made against it. Brant's secret fears that +it was an intended impact against the centre were confirmed. Would +his communication to the divisional commander pass through the +attacking column in time? + +Yet one thing puzzled him. The enemy, after forcing his flank, had +shown no disposition, even with their overwhelming force, to turn +aside and crush him. He could easily have fallen back, when it was +possible to hold the ridge no longer, without pursuit. His other +flank and rear were not threatened, as they might have been, by the +division of so large an attacking column, which was moving steadily +on towards the ridge. It was this fact that seemed to show a +failure or imperfection in the enemy's plan. It was possible that +his precipitation of the attack by the changed signal had been the +cause of it. Doubtless some provision had been made to attack him +in flank and rear, but in the unexpected hurry of the onset it had +to be abandoned. He could still save himself, as his officers +knew; but his conviction that he might yet be able to support his +divisional commander by holding his position doggedly, but coolly +awaiting his opportunity, was strong. More than that, it was his +temperament and instinct. + +Harrying them in flank and rear, contesting the ground inch by +inch, and holding his own against the artillery sent to dislodge +him, or the outriding cavalry that, circling round, swept through +his open ranks, he saw his files melt away beside this steady +current without flinching. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +Yet all along the fateful ridge--now obscured and confused with +thin crossing smoke-drifts from file-firing, like partly rubbed-out +slate-pencil marks; or else, when cleared of those drifts, +presenting only an indistinguishable map of zigzag lines of +straggling wagons and horses, unintelligible to any eye but his-- +the singular magnetism of the chief was felt everywhere: whether it +was shown in the quick closing in of resistance to some sharper +onset of the enemy or the more dogged stand of inaction under fire, +his power was always dominant. A word or two of comprehensive +direction sent through an aide-de-camp, or the sudden relief of his +dark, watchful, composed face uplifted above a line of bayonets, +never failed in their magic. Like all born leaders, he seemed in +these emergencies to hold a charmed life--infecting his followers +with a like disbelief in death; men dropped to right and left of +him with serene assurance in their ghastly faces or a cry of life +and confidence in their last gasp. Stragglers fell in and closed +up under his passing glance; a hopeless, inextricable wrangle +around an overturned caisson, at a turn of the road, resolved +itself into an orderly, quiet, deliberate clearing away of the +impediment before the significant waiting of that dark, silent +horseman. + +Yet under this imperturbable mask he was keenly conscious of +everything; in that apparent concentration there was a sharpening +of all his senses and his impressibility: he saw the first trace of +doubt or alarm in the face of a subaltern to whom he was giving an +order; the first touch of sluggishness in a re-forming line; the +more significant clumsiness of a living evolution that he knew was +clogged by the dead bodies of comrades; the ominous silence of a +breastwork; the awful inertia of some rigidly kneeling files +beyond, which still kept their form but never would move again; the +melting away of skirmish points; the sudden gaps here and there; +the sickening incurving of what a moment before had been a straight +line--all these he saw in all their fatal significance. But even +at this moment, coming upon a hasty barricade of overset commissary +wagons, he stopped to glance at a familiar figure he had seen but +an hour ago, who now seemed to be commanding a group of collected +stragglers and camp followers. Mounted on a wheel, with a revolver +in each hand and a bowie knife between his teeth--theatrical even +in his paroxysm of undoubted courage--glared Jim Hooker. And +Clarence Brant, with the whole responsibility of the field on his +shoulders, even at that desperate moment, found himself recalling a +vivid picture of the actor Hooker personating the character of "Red +Dick" in "Rosalie, the Prairie Flower," as he had seen him in a +California theatre five years before. + +It wanted still an hour of the darkness that would probably close +the fight of that day. Could he hold out, keeping his offensive +position so long? A hasty council with his officers showed him +that the weakness of their position had already infected them. +They reminded him that his line of retreat was still open--that in +the course of the night the enemy, although still pressing towards +the division centre, might yet turn and outflank him--or that their +strangely delayed supports might come up before morning. Brant's +glass, however, remained fixed on the main column, still pursuing +its way along the ridge. It struck him suddenly, however, that the +steady current had stopped, spread out along the crest on both +sides, and was now at right angles with its previous course. There +had been a check! The next moment the thunder of guns along the +whole horizon, and the rising cloud of smoke, revealed a line of +battle. The division centre was engaged. The opportunity he had +longed for had come--the desperate chance to throw himself on their +rear and cut his way through to the division--but it had come too +late! He looked at his shattered ranks--scarce a regiment remained. +Even as a demonstration, the attack would fail against the enemy's +superior numbers. Nothing clearly was left to him now but to remain +where he was--within supporting distance, and await the issue of the +fight beyond. He was putting up his glass, when the dull boom of +cannon in the extreme western limit of the horizon attracted his +attention. By the still gleaming sky he could see a long gray line +stealing up from the valley from the distant rear of the headquarters +to join the main column. They were the missing supports! His heart +leaped. He held the key of the mystery now. The one imperfect +detail of the enemy's plan was before him. The supports, coming +later from the west, had only seen the second signal from the +window--when Miss Faulkner had replaced the vase--and had avoided +his position. It was impossible to limit the effect of this +blunder. If the young girl who had thus saved him had reached the +division commander with his message in time, he might be forewarned, +and even profit by it. His own position would be less precarious, +as the enemy, already engaged in front, would be unable to recover +their position in the rear and correct the blunder. The bulk of +their column had already streamed past him. If defeated, there was +always the danger that it might be rolled back upon him--but he +conjectured that the division commander would attempt to prevent the +junction of the supports with the main column by breaking between +them, crowding them from the ridge, and joining him. As the last +stragglers of the rear guard swept by, Brant's bugles were already +recalling the skirmishers. He redoubled his pickets, and resolved +to wait and watch. + +And there was the more painful duty of looking after the wounded +and the dead. The larger rooms of the headquarters had already +been used as a hospital. Passing from cot to cot, recognizing in +the faces now drawn with agony, or staring in vacant unconsciousness, +the features that he had seen only a few hours before flushed with +enthusiasm and excitement, something of his old doubting, questioning +nature returned. Was there no way but this? How far was HE--moving +among them unscathed and uninjured-- responsible? + +And if not he--who then? His mind went back bitterly to the old +days of the conspiracy--to the inception of that struggle which was +bearing such ghastly fruit. He thought of his traitorous wife, +until he felt his cheeks tingle, and he was fain to avert his eyes +from those of his prostrate comrades, in a strange fear that, with +the clairvoyance of dying men, they should read his secret. + +It was past midnight when, without undressing, he threw himself +upon his bed in the little convent-like cell to snatch a few +moments of sleep. Its spotless, peaceful walls and draperies +affected him strangely, as if he had brought into its immaculate +serenity the sanguine stain of war. He was awakened suddenly from +a deep slumber by an indefinite sense of alarm. His first thought +was that he had been summoned to repel an attack. He sat up and +listened; everything was silent except the measured tread of the +sentry on the gravel walk below. But the door was open. He sprang +to his feet and slipped into the gallery in time to see the tall +figure of a woman glide before the last moonlit window at its +farthest end. He could not see her face--but the characteristic +turbaned head of the negro race was plainly visible. + +He did not care to follow her or even to alarm the guard. If it +were the spy or one of her emissaries, she was powerless now to do +any harm, and under his late orders and the rigorous vigilance of +his sentinels she could not leave the lines--or, indeed, the house. +She probably knew this as well as he did; it was, therefore, no +doubt only an accidental intrusion of one of the servants. He +re-entered the room, and stood for a few moments by the window, +looking over the moonlit ridge. The sounds of distant cannon had +long since ceased. Wide awake, and refreshed by the keen morning +air, which alone of all created things seemed to have shaken the +burden of the dreadful yesterday from its dewy wings, he turned +away and lit a candle on the table. As he was rebuckling his sword +belt he saw a piece of paper lying on the foot of the bed from +which he had just risen. Taking it to the candle, he read in a +roughly scrawled hand: + +"You are asleep when you should be on the march. You have no time +to lose. Before daybreak the supports of the column you have been +foolishly resisting will be upon you.--From one who would save YOU, +but hates your cause." + +A smile of scorn passed his lips. The handwriting was unknown and +evidently disguised. The purport of the message had not alarmed +him; but suddenly a suspicion flashed upon him--that it came from +Miss Faulkner! She had failed in her attempt to pass through the +enemy's lines--or she had never tried to. She had deceived him--or +had thought better of her chivalrous impulse, and now sought to +mitigate her second treachery by this second warning. And he had +let her messenger escape him! + +He hurriedly descended the stairs. The sound of voices was +approaching him. He halted, and recognized the faces of the +brigade surgeon and one of his aides-de-camp. + +"We were hesitating whether to disturb you, general, but it may be +an affair of some importance. Under your orders a negro woman was +just now challenged stealing out of the lines. Attempting to +escape, she was chased, there was a struggle and scramble over the +wall, and she fell, striking her head. She was brought into the +guardhouse unconscious." + +"Very good. I will see her," said Brant, with a feeling of relief. + +"One moment, general. We thought you would perhaps prefer to see +her alone," said the surgeon, "for when I endeavored to bring her +to, and was sponging her face and head to discover her injuries, +her color came off! She was a white woman--stained and disguised +as a mulatto." + +For an instant Brant's heart sank. It was Miss Faulkner. + +"Did you recognize her?" he said, glancing from the one to the +other. "Have you seen her here before?" + +"No, sir," replied the aide-de-camp. "But she seemed to be quite a +superior woman--a lady, I should say." + +Brant breathed more freely. + +"Where is she now?" he asked. + +"In the guardhouse. We thought it better not to bring her into +hospital, among the men, until we had your orders." + +"You have done well," returned Brant gravely. "And you will keep +this to yourselves for the present; but see that she is brought +here quietly and with as little publicity as possible. Put her in +my room above, which I give up to her and any necessary attendant. +But you will look carefully after her, doctor,"--he turned to the +surgeon,--"and when she recovers consciousness let me know." + +He moved away. Although attaching little importance to the +mysterious message, whether sent by Miss Faulkner or emanating from +the stranger herself, which, he reasoned, was based only upon a +knowledge of the original plan of attack, he nevertheless quickly +dispatched a small scouting party in the direction from which the +attack might come, with orders to fall back and report at once. +With a certain half irony of recollection he had selected Jim +Hooker to accompany the party as a volunteer. This done, he +returned to the gallery. The surgeon met him at the door. + +"The indications of concussion are passing away," he said, "but she +seems to be suffering from the exhaustion following some great +nervous excitement. You may go in--she may rally from it at any +moment." + +With the artificial step and mysterious hush of the ordinary +visitor to a sick bed, Brant entered the room. But some instinct +greater than this common expression of humanity held him suddenly +in awe. The room seemed no longer his--it had slipped back into +that austere conventual privacy which had first impressed him. Yet +he hesitated; another strange suggestion--it seemed almost a vague +recollection--overcame him like some lingering perfume, far off and +pathetic, in its dying familiarity. He turned his eyes almost +timidly towards the bed. The coverlet was drawn up near the throat +of the figure to replace the striped cotton gown stained with blood +and dust, which had been hurriedly torn off and thrown on a chair. +The pale face, cleansed of blood and disguising color, the long +hair, still damp from the surgeon's sponge, lay rigidly back on the +pillow. Suddenly this man of steady nerve uttered a faint cry, +and, with a face as white as the upturned one before him, fell on +his knees beside the bed. For the face that lay there was his +wife's! + +Yes, hers! But the beautiful hair that she had gloried in--the +hair that in his youth he had thought had once fallen like a +benediction on his shoulder--was streaked with gray along the blue- +veined hollows of the temples; the orbits of those clear eyes, +beneath their delicately arched brows, were ringed with days of +suffering; only the clear-cut profile, even to the delicate +imperiousness of lips and nostril, was still there in all its +beauty. The coverlet had slipped from her shoulder; its familiar +cold contour startled him. He remembered how, in their early +married days, he had felt the sanctity of that Diana-like +revelation, and the still nymph-like austerity which clung to this +strange, childless woman. He even fancied that he breathed again +the subtle characteristic perfume of the laces, embroideries, and +delicate enwrappings in her chamber at Robles. Perhaps it was the +intensity of his gaze--perhaps it was the magnetism of his +presence--but her lips parted with a half sigh, half moan. Her +head, although her eyes were still closed, turned on the pillow +instinctively towards him. He rose from his knees. Her eyes +opened slowly. As the first glare of wonderment cleared from them, +they met him--in the old antagonism of spirit. Yet her first +gesture was a pathetic feminine movement with both hands to arrange +her straggling hair. It brought her white fingers, cleaned of +their disguising stains, as a sudden revelation to her of what had +happened; she instantly slipped them back under the coverlet again. +Brant did not speak, but with folded arms stood gazing upon her. +And it was her voice that first broke the silence. + +"You have recognized me? Well, I suppose you know all," she said, +with a weak half-defiance. + +He bowed his head. He felt as yet he could not trust his voice, +and envied her her own. + +"I may sit up, mayn't I?" She managed, by sheer force of will, to +struggle to a sitting posture. Then, as the coverlet slipped from +the bare shoulder, she said, as she drew it, with a shiver of +disgust, around her again,-- + +"I forgot that you strip women, you Northern soldiers! But I +forgot, too," she added, with a sarcastic smile, "that you are also +my husband, and I am in your room." + +The contemptuous significance of her speech dispelled the last +lingering remnant of Brant's dream. In a voice as dry as her own, +he said,-- + +"I am afraid you will now have to remember only that I am a +Northern general, and you a Southern spy." + +"So be it," she said gravely. Then impulsively, "But I have not +spied on YOU." + +Yet, the next moment, she bit her lips as if the expression had +unwittingly escaped her; and with a reckless shrug of her shoulders +she lay back on her pillow. + +"It matters not," said Brant coldly. "You have used this house and +those within it to forward your designs. It is not your fault that +you found nothing in the dispatch-box you opened." + +She stared at him quickly; then shrugged her shoulders again. + +"I might have known she was false to me," she said bitterly, "and +that you would wheedle her soul away as you have others. Well, she +betrayed me! For what?" + +A flush passed over Brant's face. But with an effort he contained +himself. + +"It was the flower that betrayed you! The flower whose red dust +fell in the box when you opened it on the desk by the window in +yonder room--the flower that stood in the window as a signal--the +flower I myself removed, and so spoiled the miserable plot that +your friends concocted." + +A look of mingled terror and awe came into her face. + +"YOU changed the signal!" she repeated dazedly; then, in a lower +voice, "that accounts for it all!" But the next moment she turned +again fiercely upon him. "And you mean to tell me that she didn't +help you--that she didn't sell me--your wife--to you for--for what +was it? A look--a kiss!" + +"I mean to say that she did not know the signal was changed, and +that she herself restored it to its place. It is no fault of hers +nor yours that I am not here a prisoner." + +She passed her thin hand dazedly across her forehead. + +"I see," she muttered. Then again bursting out passionately, she +said--"Fool! you never would have been touched! Do you think that +Lee would have gone for you, with higher game in your division +commander? No! Those supports were a feint to draw him to your +assistance while our main column broke his centre. Yes, you may +stare at me, Clarence Brant. You are a good lawyer--they say a +dashing fighter, too. I never thought you a coward, even in your +irresolution; but you are fighting with men drilled in the art of +war and strategy when you were a boy outcast on the plains." She +stopped, closed her eyes, and then added, wearily--"But that was +yesterday--to-day, who knows? All may be changed. The supports +may still attack you. That was why I stopped to write you that +note an hour ago, when I believed I should be leaving here for +ever. Yes, I did it!" she went on, with half-wearied, half-dogged +determination. "You may as well know all. I had arranged to fly. +Your pickets were to be drawn by friends of mine, who were waiting +for me beyond your lines. Well, I lingered here when I saw you +arrive--lingered to write you that note. And--I was too late!" + +But Brant had been watching her varying expression, her kindling +eye, her strange masculine grasp of military knowledge, her +soldierly phraseology, all so new to her, that he scarcely heeded +the feminine ending of her speech. It seemed to him no longer the +Diana of his youthful fancy, but some Pallas Athene, who now looked +up at him from the pillow. He had never before fully believed in +her unselfish devotion to the cause until now, when it seemed to +have almost unsexed her. In his wildest comprehension of her he +had never dreamed her a Joan of Arc, and yet hers was the face +which might have confronted him, exalted and inspired, on the +battlefield itself. He recalled himself with an effort. + +"I thank you for your would-be warning," he said more gently, if +not so tenderly, "and God knows I wish your flight had been +successful. But even your warning is unnecessary, for the supports +had already come up; they had followed the second signal, and +diverged to engage our division on the left, leaving me alone. And +their ruse of drawing our commander to assist me would not have +been successful, as I had suspected it, and sent a message to him +that I wanted no help." + +It was the truth; it was the sole purport of the note he had sent +through Miss Faulkner. He would not have disclosed his sacrifice; +but so great was the strange domination of this woman still over +him, that he felt compelled to assert his superiority. She fixed +her eyes upon him. + +"And Miss Faulkner took your message?" she said slowly. "Don't +deny it! No one else could have passed through our lines; and you +gave her a safe conduct through yours. Yes, I might have known it. +And this was the creature they sent me for an ally and confidant!" + +For an instant Brant felt the sting of this enforced contrast +between the two women. But he only said,-- + +"You forget that I did not know you were the spy, nor do I believe +that she suspected you were my wife." + +"Why should she?" she said almost fiercely. "I am known among +these people only by the name of Benham---my maiden name. Yes!-- +you can take me out, and shoot me under that name, without +disgracing yours. Nobody will know that the Southern spy was the +wife of the Northern general! You see, I have thought even of +that!" + +"And thinking of that," said Brant slowly, "you have put yourself-- +I will not say in my power, for you are in the power of any man in +this camp who may know you, or even hear you speak. Well, let us +understand each other plainly. I do not know how great a sacrifice +your devotion to your cause demands of you; I do know what it seems +to demand of me. Hear me, then! I will do my best to protect you, +and get you safely away from here; but, failing that, I tell you +plainly that I shall blow out your brains and my own together." + +She knew that he would do it. Yet her eyes suddenly beamed with a +new and awakening light; she put back her hair again, and half +raised herself upon the pillow, to gaze at his dark, set face. + +"And as I shall let no other life but ours be periled in this +affair," he went on quietly, "and will accompany you myself in some +disguise beyond the lines, we will together take the risks--or the +bullets of the sentries that may save us both all further trouble. +An hour or two more will settle that. Until then your weak +condition will excuse you from any disturbance or intrusion here. +The mulatto woman you have sometimes personated may be still in +this house; I will appoint her to attend you. I suppose you can +trust her, for you must personate her again, and escape in her +clothes, while she takes your place in this room as my prisoner." + +"Clarence!" + +Her voice had changed suddenly; it was no longer bitter and +stridulous, but low and thrilling as he had heard her call to him +that night in the patio of Robles. He turned quickly. She was +leaning from the bed--her thin, white hands stretched appealingly +towards him. + +"Let us go together, Clarence," she said eagerly. "Let us leave +this horrible place--these wicked, cruel people--forever. Come +with me! Come with me to my people--to my own faith--to my own +house--which shall be yours! Come with me to defend it with your +good sword, Clarence, against those vile invaders with whom you +have nothing in common, and who are the dirt under your feet. Yes, +yes! I know it!--I have done you wrong--I have lied to you when I +spoke against your skill and power. You are a hero--a born leader +of men! I know it! Have I not heard it from the men who have +fought against you, and yet admired and understood you, ay, better +than your own?--gallant men, Clarence, soldiers bred who did not +know what you were to me nor how proud I was of you even while I +hated you? Come with me! Think what we would do together--with +one faith--one cause--one ambition! Think, Clarence, there is no +limit you might not attain! We are no niggards of our rewards and +honors--we have no hireling votes to truckle to--we know our +friends! Even I--Clarence--I"--there was a strange pathos in the +sudden humility that seemed to overcome her--"I have had my reward +and known my power. I have been sent abroad, in the confidence of +the highest--to the highest. Don't turn from me. I am offering +you no bribe, Clarence, only your deserts. Come with me. Leave +these curs behind, and live the hero that you are!" + +He turned his blazing eyes upon her. + +"If you were a man"--he began passionately, then stopped. + +"No! I am only a woman and must fight in a woman's way," she +interrupted bitterly. "Yes! I intreat, I implore, I wheedle, I +flatter, I fawn, I lie! I creep where you stand upright, and pass +through doors to which you would not bow. You wear your blazon of +honor on your shoulder; I hide mine in a slave's gown. And yet I +have worked and striven and suffered! Listen, Clarence," her voice +again sank to its appealing minor,--"I know what you men call +'honor,' that which makes you cling to a merely spoken word, or an +empty oath. Well, let that pass! I am weary; I have done my share +of this work, you have done yours. Let us both fly; let us leave +the fight to those who shall come after us, and let us go together +to some distant land where the sounds of these guns or the blood of +our brothers no longer cry out to us for vengeance! There are +those living here--I have met them, Clarence," she went on +hurriedly, "who think it wrong to lift up fratricidal hands in the +struggle, yet who cannot live under the Northern yoke. They are," +her voice hesitated, "good men and women--they are respected--they +are"-- + +"Recreants and slaves, before whom you, spy as you are--stand a +queen!" broke in Brant, passionately. He stopped and turned +towards the window. After a pause he came back again towards the +bed--paused again and then said in a lower voice--"Four years ago, +Alice, in the patio of our house at Robles, I might have listened +to this proposal, and--I tremble to think--I might have accepted +it! I loved you; I was as weak, as selfish, as unreflecting, my +life was as purposeless--but for you--as the creatures you speak +of. But give me now, at least, the credit of a devotion to my +cause equal to your own--a credit which I have never denied you! +For the night that you left me, I awoke to a sense of my own +worthlessness and degradation--perhaps I have even to thank you for +that awakening--and I realized the bitter truth. But that night I +found my true vocation--my purpose, my manhood"-- + +A bitter laugh came from the pillow on which she had languidly +thrown herself. + +"I believe I left you with Mrs. Hooker--spare me the details." + +The blood rushed to Brant's face and then receded as suddenly. + +"You left me with Captain Pinckney, who had tempted you, and whom I +killed!" he said furiously. + +They were both staring savagely at each other. Suddenly he said, +"Hush!" and sprang towards the door, as the sound of hurried +footsteps echoed along the passage. But he was too late; it was +thrown open to the officer of the guard, who appeared, standing on +the threshold. + +"Two Confederate officers arrested hovering around our pickets. +They demand to see you." + +Before Brant could interpose, two men in riding cloaks of +Confederate gray stepped into the room with a jaunty and self- +confident air. + +"Not DEMAND, general," said the foremost, a tall, distinguished- +looking man, lifting his hand with a graceful deprecating air. "In +fact, too sorry to bother you with an affair of no importance +except to ourselves. A bit of after-dinner bravado brought us in +contact with your pickets, and, of course, we had to take the +consequences. Served us right, and we were lucky not to have got a +bullet through us. Gad! I'm afraid my men would have been less +discreet! I am Colonel Lagrange, of the 5th Tennessee; my young +friend here is Captain Faulkner, of the 1st Kentucky. Some excuse +for a youngster like him--none for me! I"-- + +He stopped, for his eyes suddenly fell upon the bed and its +occupant. Both he and his companion started. But to the natural, +unaffected dismay of a gentleman who had unwittingly intruded upon +a lady's bedchamber, Brant's quick eye saw a more disastrous +concern superadded. Colonel Lagrange was quick to recover himself, +as they both removed their caps. + +"A thousand pardons," he said, hurriedly stepping backwards to the +door. "But I hardly need say to a fellow-officer, general, that we +had no idea of making so gross an intrusion! We heard some cock- +and-bull story of your being occupied--cross-questioning an escaped +or escaping nigger--or we should never have forced ourselves upon +you." + +Brant glanced quickly at his wife. Her face had apparently become +rigid on the entrance of the two men; her eyes were coldly fixed +upon the ceiling. He bowed formally, and, with a wave of his hand +towards the door, said,-- + +"I will hear your story below, gentleman." + +He followed them from the room, stopped to quietly turn the key in +the lock, and then motioned them to precede him down the staircase. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +Not a word was exchanged till they had reached the lower landing +and Brant's private room. Dismissing his subaltern and orderly +with a sign, Brant turned towards his prisoners. The jaunty ease, +but not the self-possession, had gone from Lagrange's face; the +eyes of Captain Faulkner were fixed on his older companion with a +half-humorous look of perplexity. + +"I am afraid I can only repeat, general, that our foolhardy freak +has put us in collision with your sentries," said Lagrange, with a +slight hauteur, that replaced his former jauntiness; "and we were +very properly made prisoners. If you will accept my parole, I have +no doubt our commander will proceed to exchange a couple of gallant +fellows of yours, whom I have had the honor of meeting within our +own lines, and whom you must miss probably more than I fear our +superiors miss us." + +"Whatever brought you here, gentlemen," said Brant drily, "I am +glad, for your sakes, that you are in uniform, although it does +not, unfortunately, relieve me of an unpleasant duty." + +"I don't think I understand you," returned Lagrange, coldly. + +"If you had not been in uniform, you would probably have been shot +down as spies, without the trouble of capture," said Brant quietly. + +"Do you mean to imply, sir"--began Lagrange sternly. + +"I mean to say that the existence of a Confederate spy between this +camp and the division headquarters is sufficiently well known to us +to justify the strongest action." + +"And pray, how can that affect us?" said Lagrange haughtily. + +"I need not inform so old a soldier as Colonel Lagrange that the +aiding, abetting, and even receiving information from a spy or +traitor within one's lines is an equally dangerous service." + +"Perhaps you would like to satisfy yourself, General," said Colonel +Lagrange, with an ironical laugh. "Pray do not hesitate on account +of our uniform. Search us if you like." + +"Not on entering my lines, Colonel," replied Brant, with quiet +significance. + +Lagrange's cheek flushed. But he recovered himself quickly, and +with a formal bow said,-- + +"You will, then, perhaps, let us know your pleasure?" + +"My DUTY, Colonel, is to keep you both close prisoners here until I +have an opportunity to forward you to the division commander, with +a report of the circumstances of your arrest. That I propose to +do. How soon I may have that opportunity, or if I am ever to have +it," continued Brant, fixing his clear eyes significantly on +Lagrange, "depends upon the chances of war, which you probably +understand as well as I do." + +"We should never think of making any calculation on the action of +an officer of such infinite resources as General Brant," said +Lagrange ironically. + +"You will, no doubt, have an opportunity of stating your own case +to the division commander," continued Brant, with an unmoved face. +"And," he continued, turning for the first time to Captain +Faulkner, "when you tell the commander what I believe to be the +fact--from your name and resemblance--that you are a relation of +the young lady who for the last three weeks has been an inmate of +this house under a pass from Washington, you will, I have no doubt, +favorably explain your own propinquity to my lines." + +"My sister Tilly!" said the young officer impulsively. "But she is +no longer here. She passed through the lines back to Washington +yesterday. No," he added, with a light laugh, "I'm afraid that +excuse won't count for to-day." + +A sudden frown upon the face of the elder officer, added to the +perfect ingenuousness of Faulkner's speech, satisfied Brant that he +had not only elicited the truth, but that Miss Faulkner had been +successful. But he was sincere in his suggestion that her +relationship to the young officer would incline the division +commander to look leniently upon his fault, for he was conscious of +a singular satisfaction in thus being able to serve her. Of the +real object of the two men before him he had no doubt. They were +"the friends" of his wife, who were waiting for her outside the +lines! Chance alone had saved her from being arrested with them, +with the consequent exposure of her treachery before his own men, +who, as yet, had no proof of her guilt, nor any suspicion of her +actual identity. Meanwhile his own chance of conveying her with +safety beyond his lines was not affected by the incident; the +prisoners dare not reveal what they knew of her, and it was with a +grim triumph that he thought of compassing her escape without their +aid. Nothing of this, however, was visible in his face, which the +younger man watched with a kind of boyish curiosity, while Colonel +Lagrange regarded the ceiling with a politely repressed yawn. "I +regret," concluded Brant, as he summoned the officer of the guard, +"that I shall have to deprive you of each other's company during +the time you are here; but I shall see that you, separately, want +for nothing in your confinement." + +"If this is with a view to separate interrogatory, general, I can +retire now," said Lagrange, rising, with ironical politeness. + +"I believe I have all the information I require," returned Brant, +with undisturbed composure. Giving the necessary orders to his +subaltern, he acknowledged with equal calm the formal salutes of +the two prisoners as they were led away, and returned quickly to +his bedroom above. He paused instinctively for a moment before the +closed door, and listened. There was no sound from within. He +unlocked the door, and opened it. + +So quiet was the interior that for an instant, without glancing at +the bed, he cast a quick look at the window, which, till then, he +had forgotten, and which he remembered gave upon the veranda roof. +But it was still closed, and as he approached the bed, he saw his +wife still lying there, in the attitude in which he had left her. +But her eyes were ringed, and slightly filmed, as if with recent +tears. + +It was perhaps this circumstance that softened his voice, still +harsh with command, as he said,-- + +"I suppose you knew those two men?" + +"Yes." + +"And that I have put it out of their power to help you?" + +"I do." + +There was something so strangely submissive in her voice that he +again looked suspiciously at her. But he was shocked to see that +she was quite pale now, and that the fire had gone out of her dark +eyes. + +"Then I may tell you what is my plan to save you. But, first, you +must find this mulatto woman who has acted as your double." + +"She is here." + +"Here?" + +"Yes." + +"How do you know it?" he asked, in quick suspicion. + +"She was not to leave this place until she knew I was safe within +our lines. I have some friends who are faithful to me." After a +pause she added, "She has been here already." + +He looked at her, startled. "Impossible--I"-- + +"You locked the door. Yes! but she has a second key. And even if +she had not, there is another entrance from that closet. You do +not know this house: you have been here two weeks; I spent two +years of my life, as a girl, in this room." + +An indescribable sensation came over him; he remembered how he had +felt when he first occupied it; this was followed by a keen sense +of shame on reflecting that he had been, ever since, but a helpless +puppet in the power of his enemies, and that she could have escaped +if she would, even now. + +"Perhaps," he said grimly, "you have already arranged your plans?" + +She looked at him with a singular reproachfulness even in her +submission. + +"I have only told her to be ready to change clothes with me and +help me color my face and hands at the time appointed. I have left +the rest to you." + +"Then this is my plan. I have changed only a detail. You and she +must both leave this house at the same time, by different exits, +but one of them must be private--and unknown to my men. Do you +know of such a one?" + +"Yes," she said, "in the rear of the negro quarters." + +"Good," he replied, "that will be your way out. She will leave +here, publicly, through the parade, armed with a pass from me. She +will be overhauled and challenged by the first sentry near the +guardhouse, below the wall. She will be subjected to some delay +and scrutiny, which she will, however, be able to pass better than +you would. This will create the momentary diversion that we +require. In the mean time, you will have left the house by the +rear, and you will then keep in the shadow of the hedge until you +can drop down along the Run, where it empties into the swamp. +That," he continued, fixing his keen eyes upon her, "is the one +weak point in the position of this place that is neither overlooked +nor defended. But perhaps," he added again grimly, "you already +know it." + +"It is the marsh where the flowers grow, near the path where you +met Miss Faulkner. I had crossed the marsh to give her a letter," +she said slowly. + +A bitter smile came over Brant's face, but passed as quickly. + +"Enough," he said quietly, "I will meet you beside the Run, and +cross the marsh with you until you are within hailing distance of +your lines. I will be in plain clothes, Alice," he went on slowly, +"for it will not be the commander of this force who accompanies +you, but your husband, and, without disgracing his uniform, he will +drop to your level; for the instant he passes his own lines, in +disguise, he will become, like you, a spy, and amenable to its +penalties." + +Her eyes seemed suddenly to leap up to his with that strange look +of awakening and enthusiasm which he had noted before. And in its +complete prepossession of all her instincts she rose from the bed, +unheeding her bared arms and shoulders and loosened hair, and stood +upright before him. For an instant husband and wife regarded each +other as unreservedly as in their own chamber at Robles. + +"When shall I go?" + +He glanced through the window already growing lighter with the +coming dawn. The relief would pass in a few moments; the time +seemed propitious. + +"At once," he said. "I will send Rose to you." + +But his wife had already passed into the closet, and was tapping +upon some inner door. He heard the sound of hinges turning and the +rustling of garments. She reappeared, holding the curtains of the +closet together with her hand, and said,-- + +"Go! When she comes to your office for the pass, you will know +that I have gone." + +He turned away. + +"Stop!" she said faintly. + +He turned back. Her expression had again changed. Her face was +deadly pale; a strange tremor seemed to have taken possession of +her. Her hands dropped from the curtain. Her beautiful arms moved +slightly forward; it seemed to him that she would in the next +moment have extended them towards him. But even then she said +hurriedly, "Go! Go!" and slipped again behind the curtains. + +He quickly descended the stairs as the sound of trampling feet on +the road, and the hurried word of command, announced the return of +the scouting party. The officer had little report to make beyond +the fact that a morning mist, creeping along the valley, prevented +any further observation, and bade fair to interrupt their own +communications with the camp. Everything was quiet in the west, +although the enemy's lines along the ridge seemed to have receded. + +Brant had listened impatiently, for a new idea had seized him. +Hooker was of the party, and was the one man in whom he could +partly confide, and obtain a disguise. He at once made his way to +the commissary wagons--one of which he knew Hooker used as a tent. +Hastily telling him that he wished to visit the pickets without +recognition, he induced him to lend him his slouched hat and frock +coat, leaving with him his own distinguishing tunic, hat, and +sword. He resisted the belt and pistols which Hooker would have +forced upon him. As he left the wagon he was amusedly conscious +that his old companion was characteristically examining the +garments he had left behind with mingled admiration and envy. But +he did not know, as he slipped out of the camp, that Mr. Hooker was +quietly trying them on, before a broken mirror in the wagon-head! + +The gray light of that summer morning was already so strong that, +to avoid detection, he quickly dropped into the shadow of the gully +that sloped towards the Run. The hot mist which the scouts had +seen was now lying like a tranquil sea between him and the pickets +of the enemy's rear-guard, which it seemed to submerge, and was +clinging in moist tenuous swathes--like drawn-out cotton wool-- +along the ridge, half obliterating its face. From the valley in +the rear it was already stealing in a thin white line up the slope +like the advance of a ghostly column, with a stealthiness that, in +spite of himself, touched him with superstitious significance. A +warm perfume, languid and treacherous--as from the swamp magnolia-- +seemed to rise from the half-hidden marsh. An ominous silence, +that appeared to be a part of this veiling of all things under the +clear opal-tinted sky above, was so little like the hush of rest +and peace, that he half-yearned for the outburst of musketry and +tumult of attack that might dispel it. All that he had ever heard +or dreamed of the insidious South, with its languid subtleties of +climate and of race, seemed to encompass him here. + +But the next moment he saw the figure he was waiting for stealing +towards him from the shadow of the gulley beneath the negro +quarters. + +Even in that uncertain light there was no mistaking the tall +figure, the gaudily striped clinging gown and turbaned head. And +then a strange revulsion of feeling, quite characteristic of the +emotional side of his singular temperament, overcame him. He was +taking leave of his wife--the dream of his youth--perhaps forever! +It should be no parting in anger as at Robles; it should be with a +tenderness that would blot out their past in their separate +memories--God knows! it might even be that a parting at that moment +was a joining of them in eternity. In his momentary exaltation it +even struck him that it was a duty, no less sacred, no less +unselfish than the one to which he had devoted his life. The light +was growing stronger; he could hear voices in the nearest picket +line, and the sound of a cough in the invading mist. He made a +hurried sign to the on-coming figure to follow him, ran ahead, and +halted at last in the cover of a hackmatack bush. Still gazing +forward over the marsh, he stealthily held out his hand behind him +as the rustling skirt came nearer. At last his hand was touched-- +but even at that touch he started and turned quickly. + +It was not his wife, but Rose!--her mulatto double! Her face was +rigid with fright, her beady eyes staring in their china sockets, +her white teeth chattering. Yet she would have spoken. + +"Hush!" he said, clutching her hand, in a fierce whisper. "Not a +word!" + +She was holding something white in her fingers; he snatched it +quickly. It was a note from his wife--not in the disguised hand of +her first warning, but in one that he remembered as if it were a +voice from their past. + +"Forgive me for disobeying you to save you from capture, disgrace, +or death--which would have come to you where you were going! I +have taken Rose's pass. You need not fear that your honor will +suffer by it, for if I am stopped I shall confess that I took it +from her. Think no more of me, Clarence, but only of yourself. +You are in danger." + +He crushed the letter in his hand. + +"Tell me," he said in a fierce whisper, seizing her arm, "and speak +low. When did you leave her?" + +"Sho'ly just now!" gasped the frightened woman. + +He flung her aside. There might be still time to overtake and save +her before she reached the picket lines. He ran up the gully, and +out on to the slope towards the first guard-post. But a familiar +challenge reached his ear, and his heart stopped beating. + +"Who goes there?" + +There was a pause, a rattle of arms voices--another pause--and +Brant stood breathlessly listening. Then the voice rose again +slowly and clearly: "Pass the mulatto woman!" + +Thank God! she was saved! But the thought had scarcely crossed his +mind before it seemed to him that a blinding crackle of sparks +burst out along the whole slope below the wall, a characteristic +yell which he knew too well rang in his ears, and an undulating +line of dusty figures came leaping like gray wolves out of the mist +upon his pickets. He heard the shouts of his men falling back as +they fired; the harsh commands of a few officers hurrying to their +posts, and knew that he had been hopelessly surprised and surrounded! + +He ran forward among his disorganized men. To his consternation no +one seemed to heed him! Then the remembrance of his disguise +flashed upon him. But he had only time to throw away his hat and +snatch a sword from a falling lieutenant, before a scorching flash +seemed to pass before his eyes and burn through his hair, and he +dropped like a log beside his subaltern. + + . . . . . . + +An aching under the bandage around his head where a spent bullet +had grazed his scalp, and the sound of impossible voices in his +ears were all he knew as he struggled slowly back to consciousness +again. Even then it still seemed a delusion,--for he was lying on +a cot in his own hospital, yet with officers of the division staff +around him, and the division commander himself standing by his +side, and regarding him with an air of grave but not unkindly +concern. But the wounded man felt instinctively that it was not +the effect of his physical condition, and a sense of shame came +suddenly over him, which was not dissipated by his superior's +words. For, motioning the others aside, the major-general leaned +over his cot, and said,-- + +"Until a few moments ago, the report was that you had been captured +in the first rush of the rear-guard which we were rolling up for +your attack, and when you were picked up, just now, in plain +clothes on the slope, you were not recognized. The one thing +seemed to be as improbable as the other," he added significantly. + +The miserable truth flashed across Brant's mind. Hooker must have +been captured in his clothes--perhaps in some extravagant sally-- +and had not been recognized in the confusion by his own officers. +Nevertheless, he raised his eyes to his superior. + +"You got my note?" + +The general's brow darkened. + +"Yes," he said slowly, "but finding you thus unprepared--I had been +thinking just now that you had been deceived by that woman--or by +others--and that it was a clumsy forgery." He stopped, and seeing +the hopeless bewilderment in the face of the wounded man, added +more kindly: "But we will not talk of that in your present +condition. The doctor says a few hours will put you straight +again. Get strong, for I want you to lose no time--for your own +sake--to report yourself at Washington." + +"Report myself--at Washington!" repeated Brant slowly. + +"That was last night's order," said the commander, with military +curtness. Then he burst out: "I don't understand it, Brant! I +believe you have been misunderstood, misrepresented, perhaps +maligned and I shall make it MY business to see the thing through-- +but those are the Department orders. And for the present--I am +sorry to say you are relieved of your command." + +He turned away, and Brant closed his eyes. With them it seemed to +him that he closed his career. No one would ever understand his +explanation--even had he been tempted to give one, and he knew he +never would. Everything was over now! Even this wretched bullet +had not struck him fairly, and culminated his fate as it might! +For an instant, he recalled his wife's last offer to fly with him +beyond the seas--beyond this cruel injustice--but even as he +recalled it, he knew that flight meant the worst of all--a half- +confession! But she had escaped! Thank God for that! Again and +again in his hopeless perplexity this comfort returned to him,--he +had saved her; he had done his duty. And harping upon this in his +strange fatalism, it at last seemed to him that this was for what +he had lived--for what he had suffered--for what he had fitly ended +his career. Perhaps it was left for him now to pass his remaining +years in forgotten exile--even as his father had--his father!--his +breath came quickly at the thought--God knows! perhaps as +wrongfully accused! It may have been a Providence that she had +borne him no child, to whom this dreadful heritage could be again +transmitted. + +There was something of this strange and fateful resignation in his +face, a few hours later, when he was able to be helped again into +the saddle. But he could see in the eyes of the few comrades who +commiseratingly took leave of him, a vague, half-repressed awe of +some indefinite weakness in the man, that mingled with their +heartfelt parting with a gallant soldier. Yet even this touched +him no longer. He cast a glance at the house and the room where he +had parted from her, at the slope from which she had passed--and +rode away. + +And then, as his figure disappeared down the road, the restrained +commentary of wonder, surmise, and criticism broke out:-- + +"It must have been something mighty bad, for the old man, who +swears by him, looked rather troubled. And it was deuced queer, +you know, this changing clothes with somebody, just before this +surprise!" + +"Nonsense! It's something away back of that! Didn't you hear the +old man say that the orders for him to report himself came from +Washington LAST NIGHT? No!"--the speaker lowered his voice-- +"Strangeways says that he had regularly sold himself out to one of +them d----d secesh woman spies! It's the old Marc Antony business +over again!" + +"Now I think of it," said a younger subaltern, "he did seem +mightily taken with one of those quadroons or mulattoes he issued +orders against. I suppose that was a blind for us! I remember the +first day he saw her; he was regularly keen to know all about her." + +Major Curtis gave a short laugh. + +"That mulatto, Martin, was a white woman, burnt-corked! She was +trying to get through the lines last night, and fell off a wall or +got a knock on the head from a sentry's carbine. When she was +brought in, Doctor Simmons set to washing the blood off her face; +the cork came off and the whole thing came out. Brant hushed it +up--and the woman, too--in his own quarters! It's supposed now +that she got away somehow in the rush!" + +"It goes further back than that, gentlemen," said the adjutant +authoritatively. "They say his wife was a howling secessionist, +four years ago, in California, was mixed up in a conspiracy, and he +had to leave on account of it. Look how thick he and that Miss +Faulkner became, before he helped HER off!" + +"That's your jealousy, Tommy; she knew he was, by all odds, the +biggest man here, and a good deal more, too, and you had no show!" + +In the laugh that followed, it would seem that Brant's eulogy had +been spoken and forgotten. But as Lieutenant Martin was turning +away, a lingering corporal touched his cap. + +"You were speaking of those prowling mulattoes, sir. You know the +general passed one out this morning." + +"So I have heard." + +"I reckon she didn't get very far. It was just at the time that we +were driven in by their first fire, and I think she got her share +of it, too. Do you mind walking this way, sir!" + +The lieutenant did not mind, although he rather languidly followed. +When they had reached the top of the gully, the corporal pointed to +what seemed to be a bit of striped calico hanging on a thorn bush +in the ravine. + +"That's her," said the corporal. "I know the dress; I was on guard +when she was passed. The searchers, who were picking up our men, +haven't got to her yet; but she ain't moved or stirred these two +hours. Would you like to go down and see her?" + +The lieutenant hesitated. He was young, and slightly fastidious as +to unnecessary unpleasantness. He believed he would wait until the +searchers brought her up, when the corporal might call him. + +The mist came up gloriously from the swamp like a golden halo. And +as Clarence Brant, already forgotten, rode moodily through it +towards Washington, hugging to his heart the solitary comfort of +his great sacrifice, his wife, Alice Brant, for whom he had made +it, was lying in the ravine, dead and uncared for. Perhaps it was +part of the inconsistency of her sex that she was pierced with the +bullets of those she had loved, and was wearing the garments of the +race that she had wronged. + + + +PART III. + + +CHAPTER I. + + +It was sunset of a hot day at Washington. Even at that hour the +broad avenues, which diverged from the Capitol like the rays of +another sun, were fierce and glittering. The sterile distances +between glowed more cruelly than ever, and pedestrians, keeping in +the scant shade, hesitated on the curbstones before plunging into +the Sahara-like waste of crossings. The city seemed deserted. +Even that vast army of contractors, speculators, place-hunters, and +lobbyists, which hung on the heels of the other army, and had +turned this pacific camp of the nation into a battlefield of +ignoble conflict and contention--more disastrous than the one to +the South--had slunk into their holes in hotel back bedrooms, in +shady barrooms, or in the negro quarters of Georgetown, as if the +majestic, white-robed Goddess enthroned upon the dome of the +Capitol had at last descended among them and was smiting to right +and left with the flat and flash of her insufferable sword. + +Into this stifling atmosphere of greed and corruption Clarence +Brant stepped from the shadow of the War Department. For the last +three weeks he had haunted its ante-rooms and audience-chambers, in +the vain hope of righting himself before his superiors, who were +content, without formulating charges against him, to keep him in +this disgrace of inaction and the anxiety of suspense. Unable to +ascertain the details of the accusation, and conscious of his own +secret, he was debarred the last resort of demanding a court- +martial, which he knew could only exonerate him by the exposure of +the guilt of his wife, whom he still hoped had safely escaped. His +division commander, in active operations in the field, had no time +to help him at Washington. Elbowed aside by greedy contractors, +forestalled by selfish politicians, and disdaining the ordinary +method of influence, he had no friend to turn to. In his few years +of campaigning he had lost his instinct of diplomacy, without +acquiring a soldier's bluntness. + +The nearly level rays of the sun forced him at last to turn aside +into one of the openings of a large building--a famous caravansary +of that hotel-haunted capital, and he presently found himself in +the luxurious bar-room, fragrant with mint, and cool with ice-slabs +piled symmetrically on its marble counters. A few groups of men +were seeking coolness at small tables with glasses before them and +palm-leaf fans in their hands, but a larger and noisier assemblage +was collected before the bar, where a man, collarless and in his +shirt-sleeves, with his back to the counter, was pretentiously +addressing them. Brant, who had moodily dropped into a chair in +the corner, after ordering a cooling drink as an excuse for his +temporary refuge from the stifling street, half-regretted his +enforced participation in their conviviality. But a sudden +lowering of the speaker's voice into a note of gloomy significance +seemed familiar to him. He glanced at him quickly, from the shadow +of his corner. He was not mistaken--it was Jim Hooker! + +For the first time in his life, Brant wished to evade him. In the +days of his own prosperity his heart had always gone out towards +this old companion of his boyhood; in his present humiliation his +presence jarred upon him. He would have slipped away, but to do so +he would have had to pass before the counter again, and Hooker, +with the self-consciousness of a story-teller, had an eye on his +audience. Brant, with a palm-leaf fan before his face, was obliged +to listen. + +"Yes, gentlemen," said Hooker, examining his glass dramatically, +"when a man's been cooped up in a Rebel prison, with a death line +before him that he's obliged to cross every time he wants a square +drink, it seems sort of like a dream of his boyhood to be standin' +here comf'ble before his liquor, alongside o' white men once more. +And when he knows he's bin put to all that trouble jest to save the +reputation of another man, and the secrets of a few high and mighty +ones, it's almost enough to make his liquor go agin him." He +stopped theatrically, seemed to choke emotionally over his brandy +squash, but with a pause of dramatic determination finally dashed +it down. "No, gentlemen," he continued gloomily, "I don't say what +I'm back in Washington FOR--I don't say what I've been sayin' to +myself when I've bin picking the weevils outer my biscuits in Libby +Prison--but ef you don't see some pretty big men in the War +Department obliged to climb down in the next few days, my name +ain't Jim Hooker, of Hooker, Meacham & Co., Army Beef Contractors, +and the man who saved the fight at Gray Oaks!" + +The smile of satisfaction that went around his audience--an audience +quick to seize the weakness of any performance--might have startled +a vanity less oblivious than Hooker's; but it only aroused Brant's +indignation and pity, and made his position still more intolerable. +But Hooker, scornfully expectorating a thin stream of tobacco juice +against the spittoon, remained for an instant gloomily silent. + +"Tell us about the fight again," said a smiling auditor. + +Hooker looked around the room with a certain dark suspiciousness, +and then, in an affected lower voice, which his theatrical +experience made perfectly audible, went on:-- + +"It ain't much to speak of, and if it wasn't for the principle of +the thing, I wouldn't be talking. A man who's seen Injin fightin' +don't go much on this here West Point fightin' by rule-of-three-- +but that ain't here or there! Well, I'd bin out a-scoutin'--just +to help the boys along, and I was sittin' in my wagon about +daybreak, when along comes a brigadier-general, and he looks into +the wagon flap. I oughter to tell you first, gentlemen, that every +minit he was expecting an attack--but he didn't let on a hint of it +to me. 'How are you, Jim?' said he. 'How are you, general?' said +I. 'Would you mind lendin' me your coat and hat?' says he. 'I've +got a little game here with our pickets, and I don't want to be +recognized.' 'Anything to oblige, general,' said I, and with that +I strips off my coat and hat, and he peels and puts them on. +'Nearly the same figure, Jim,' he says, lookin' at me, 'suppose you +try on my things and see.' With that he hands me his coat--full +uniform, by G-d!--with the little gold cords and laces and the +epaulettes with a star, and I puts it on--quite innocent-like. And +then he says, handin' me his sword and belt, 'Same inches round the +waist, I reckon,' and I puts that on too. 'You may as well keep +'em on till I come back,' says he, 'for it's mighty damp and +malarious at this time around the swamp.' And with that he lights +out. Well, gentlemen, I hadn't sat there five minutes before Bang! +bang! rattle! rattle! kershiz! and I hears a yell. I steps out of +the wagon; everything's quite dark, but the rattle goes on. Then +along trots an orderly, leadin' a horse. 'Mount, general,' he +says, 'we're attacked--the rear-guard's on us!'" + +He paused, looked round his audience, and then in a lower voice, +said darkly,-- + +"I ain't a fool, an' in that minute a man's brain works at high +pressure, and I saw it all! I saw the little game of the brigadier +to skunk away in my clothes and leave me to be captured in his. +But I ain't a dog neither, and I mounted that horse, gentlemen, and +lit out to where the men were formin'! I didn't dare to speak, +lest they should know me, but I waved my sword, and by G-d! they +followed me! And the next minit we was in the thick of it. I had +my hat as full of holes as that ice strainer; I had a dozen bullets +through my coat, the fringe of my epaulettes was shot away, but I +kept the boys at their work--and we stopped 'em! Stopped 'em, +gentlemen, until we heard the bugles of the rest of our division, +that all this time had been rolling that blasted rear-guard over on +us! And it saved the fight; but the next minute the Johnny Rebs +made a last dash and cut me off--and there I was--by G-d, a +prisoner! Me that had saved the fight!" + +A ripple of ironical applause went round as Hooker gloomily drained +his glass, and then held up his hand in scornful deprecation. + +"I said I was a prisoner, gentlemen," he went on bitterly; "but +that ain't all! I asked to see Johnston, told him what I had done, +and demanded to be exchanged for a general officer. He said, 'You +be d----d.' I then sent word to the division commander-in-chief, +and told him how I had saved Gray Oaks when his brigadier ran away, +and he said, 'You be d----d.' I've bin 'You be d----d' from the +lowest non-com. to the commander-in-chief, and when I was at last +exchanged, I was exchanged, gentlemen, for two mules and a broken +wagon. But I'm here, gentlemen--as I was thar!" + +"Why don't you see the President about it?" asked a bystander, in +affected commiseration. + +Mr. Hooker stared contemptuously at the suggestion, and expectorated +his scornful dissent. + +"Not much!" he said. "But I'm going to see the man that carries +him and his Cabinet in his breeches-pocket--Senator Boompointer." + +"Boompointer's a big man," continued his auditor doubtfully. "Do +you know him?" + +"Know him?" Mr. Hooker laughed a bitter, sardonic laugh. "Well, +gentlemen, I ain't the kind o' man to go in for family influence; +but," he added, with gloomy elevation, "considering he's an +intimate relation of mine, BY MARRIAGE, I should say I did." + +Brant heard no more; the facing around of his old companion towards +the bar gave him that opportunity of escaping he had been waiting +for. The defection of Hooker and his peculiar inventions were too +characteristic of him to excite surprise, and, although they no +longer awakened his good-humored tolerance, they were powerless to +affect him in his greater trouble. Only one thing he learned--that +Hooker knew nothing of his wife being in camp as a spy--the +incident would have been too tempting to have escaped his dramatic +embellishment. And the allusion to Senator Boompointer, monstrous +as it seemed in Hooker's mouth, gave him a grim temptation. He had +heard of Boompointer's wonderful power; he believed that Susy would +and could help him--Clarence--whether she did or did not help +Hooker. But the next moment he dismissed the idea, with a flushing +cheek. How low had he already sunk, even to think of it! + +It had been once or twice in his mind to seek the President, and, +under a promise of secrecy, reveal a part of his story. He had +heard many anecdotes of his goodness of heart and generous +tolerance of all things, but with this was joined--so said +contemporaneous history--a flippancy of speech and a brutality of +directness from which Clarence's sensibility shrank. Would he see +anything in his wife but a common spy on his army; would he see +anything in him but the weak victim, like many others, of a +scheming woman? Stories current in camp and Congress of the way +that this grim humorist had, with an apposite anecdote or a rugged +illustration, brushed away the most delicate sentiment or the +subtlest poetry, even as he had exposed the sham of Puritanic +morality or of Epicurean ethics. Brant had even solicited an +audience, but had retired awkwardly, and with his confidence +unspoken, before the dark, humorous eyes, that seemed almost too +tolerant of his grievance. He had been to levees, and his heart +had sunk equally before the vulgar crowd, who seemed to regard this +man as their own buffoon, and the pompousness of position, learning +and dignity, which he seemed to delight to shake and disturb. + +One afternoon, a few days later, in sheer listlessness of purpose, +he found himself again at the White House. The President was +giving audience to a deputation of fanatics, who, with a pathetic +simplicity almost equal to his own pathetic tolerance, were urging +upon this ruler of millions the policy of an insignificant score, +and Brant listened to his patient, practical response of facts and +logic, clothed in simple but sinewy English, up to the inevitable +climax of humorous illustration, which the young brigadier could +now see was necessary to relieve the grimness of his refusal. For +the first time Brant felt the courage to address him, and resolved +to wait until the deputation retired. As they left the gallery he +lingered in the ante-room for the President to appear. But, as he +did not come, afraid of losing his chances, he returned to the +gallery. Alone in his privacy and shadow, the man he had just left +was standing by a column, in motionless abstraction, looking over +the distant garden. But the kindly, humorous face was almost +tragic with an intensity of weariness! Every line of those strong, +rustic features was relaxed under a burden which even the long, +lank, angular figure--overgrown and unfinished as his own West-- +seemed to be distorted in its efforts to adjust itself to; while +the dark, deep-set eyes were abstracted with the vague prescience +of the prophet and the martyr. Shocked at that sudden change, +Brant felt his cheek burn with shame. And he was about to break +upon that wearied man's unbending; he was about to add his petty +burden to the shoulders of this Western Atlas. He drew back +silently, and descended the stairs. + +But before he had left the house, while mingling with the crowd in +one of the larger rooms, he saw the President reappear beside an +important, prosperous-looking figure, on whom the kindly giant was +now smiling with humorous toleration. He noticed the divided +attention of the crowd; the name of Senator Boompointer was upon +every lip; he was nearly face to face with that famous dispenser of +place and preferment--this second husband of Susy! An indescribable +feeling--half cynical, half fateful--came over him. He would not +have been surprised to see Jim Hooker join the throng, which now +seemed to him to even dwarf the lonely central figure that had so +lately touched him! He wanted to escape it all! + +But his fate brought him to the entrance at the same moment that +Boompointer was leaving it, and that distinguished man brushed +hastily by him as a gorgeous carriage, drawn by two spirited +horses, and driven by a resplendent negro coachman, dashed up. +It was the Boompointer carriage. + +A fashionably-dressed, pretty woman, who, in style, bearing, +opulent contentment, and ingenuous self-consciousness, was in +perfect keeping with the slight ostentation of the equipage, was +its only occupant. As Boompointer stepped into the vehicle, her +blue eyes fell for an instant on Brant. A happy, childlike pink +flush came into her cheeks, and a violet ray of recognition and +mischief darted from her eyes to his. For it was Susy. + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +When Brant returned to his hotel there was an augmented respect in +the voice of the clerk as he handed him a note with the remark that +it had been left by Senator Boompointer's coachman. He had no +difficulty in recognizing Susy's peculiarly Brobdingnagian school- +girl hand. + +"Kla'uns, I call it real mean! I believe you just HOPED I wouldn't +know you. If you're a bit like your old self you'll come right off +here--this very night! I've got a big party on--but we can talk +somewhere between the acts! Haven't I growed? Tell me! And my! +what a gloomy swell the young brigadier is! The carriage will come +for you--so you have no excuse." + +The effect of this childish note upon Brant was strangely out of +proportion to its triviality. But then it was Susy's very +triviality--so expressive of her characteristic irresponsibility-- +which had always affected him at such moments. Again, as at +Robles, he felt it react against his own ethics. Was she not right +in her delightful materialism? Was she not happier than if she had +been consistently true to Mrs. Peyton, to the convent, to the +episode of her theatrical career, to Jim Hooker--even to himself? +And did he conscientiously believe that Hooker or himself had +suffered from her inconsistency? No! From all that he had heard, +she was a suitable helpmate to the senator, in her social +attractiveness, her charming ostentations, her engaging vanity that +disarmed suspicion, and her lack of responsibility even in her +partisanship. Nobody ever dared to hold the senator responsible +for her promises, even while enjoying the fellowship of both, and +it is said that the worthy man singularly profited by it. Looking +upon the invitation as a possible distraction to his gloomy +thoughts, Brant resolved to go. + +The moon was high as the carriage whirled him out of the still +stifling avenues towards the Soldiers' Home--a sylvan suburb +frequented by cabinet ministers and the President--where the good +Senator had "decreed," like Kubla Khan, "a stately pleasure dome," +to entertain his friends and partisans. As they approached the +house, the trembling light like fireflies through the leaves, the +warm silence broken only by a military band playing a drowsy waltz +on the veranda, and the heavy odors of jessamine in the air, +thrilled Brant with a sense of shame as he thought of his old +comrades in the field. But this was presently dissipated by the +uniforms that met him in the hall, with the presence of some of his +distinguished superiors. At the head of the stairs, with a +circling background of the shining crosses and ribbons of the +diplomatic corps, stood Susy--her bare arms and neck glittering +with diamonds, her face radiant with childlike vivacity. A +significant pressure of her little glove as he made his bow seemed +to be his only welcome, but a moment later she caught his arm. +"You've yet to know HIM," she said in a half whisper; "he thinks a +good deal of himself--just like Jim. But he makes others believe +it, and that's where poor Jim slipped up." She paused before the +man thus characteristically disposed of, and presented Brant. It +was the man he had seen before--material, capable, dogmatic. A +glance from his shrewd eyes--accustomed to the weighing of men's +weaknesses and ambitions--and a few hurried phrases, apparently +satisfied him that Brant was not just then important or available +to him, and the two men, a moment later, drifted easily apart. +Brant sauntered listlessly through the crowded rooms, half +remorsefully conscious that he had taken some irrevocable step, and +none the less assured by the presence of two or three reporters and +correspondents who were dogging his steps, or the glance of two or +three pretty women whose curiosity had evidently been aroused by +the singular abstraction of this handsome, distinguished, but +sardonic-looking officer. But the next moment he was genuinely +moved. + +A tall young woman had just glided into the centre of the room with +an indolent yet supple gracefulness that seemed familiar to him. A +change in her position suddenly revealed her face. It was Miss +Faulkner. Previously he had known her only in the riding habit of +Confederate gray which she had at first affected, or in the light +muslin morning dress she had worn at Gray Oaks. It seemed to him, +to-night, that the studied elegance of her full dress became her +still more; that the pretty willfulness of her chin and shoulders +was chastened and modified by the pearls round her fair throat. +Suddenly their eyes met; her face paled visibly; he fancied that +she almost leaned against her companion for support; then she met +his glance again with a face into which the color had as suddenly +rushed, but with eyes that seemed to be appealing to him even to +the point of pain and fright. Brant was not conceited; he could +see that the girl's agitation was not the effect of any mere +personal influence in his recognition, but of something else. He +turned hastily away; when he looked around again she was gone. + +Nevertheless he felt filled with a vague irritation. Did she think +him such a fool as to imperil her safety by openly recognizing her +without her consent? Did she think that he would dare to presume +upon the service she had done him? Or, more outrageous thought, +had she heard of his disgrace, known its cause, and feared that he +would drag her into a disclosure to save himself? No, no; she +could not think that! She had perhaps regretted what she had done +in a freak of girlish chivalry; she had returned to her old +feelings and partisanship; she was only startled at meeting the +single witness of her folly. Well, she need not fear! He would as +studiously avoid her hereafter, and she should know it. And yet-- +yes, there was a "yet." For he could not forget--indeed, in the +past three weeks it had been more often before him than he cared to +think--that she was the one human being who had been capable of a +great act of self-sacrifice for him--her enemy, her accuser, the +man who had scarcely treated her civilly. He was ashamed to +remember now that this thought had occurred to him at the bedside +of his wife--at the hour of her escape--even on the fatal slope on +which he had been struck down. And now this fond illusion must go +with the rest--the girl who had served him so loyally was ashamed +of it! A bitter smile crossed his face. + +"Well, I don't wonder! Here are all the women asking me who is +that good-looking Mephistopheles, with the burning eyes, who is +prowling around my rooms as if searching for a victim. Why, you're +smiling for all the world like poor Jim when he used to do the Red +Avenger." + +Susy's voice--and illustration--recalled him to himself. + +"Furious I may be," he said with a gentler smile, although his eyes +still glittered, "furious that I have to wait until the one woman I +came to see--the one woman I have not seen for so long, while these +puppets have been nightly dancing before her--can give me a few +moments from them, to talk of the old days." + +In his reaction he was quite sincere, although he felt a slight +sense of remorse as he saw the quick, faint color rise, as in those +old days, even through the to-night's powder of her cheek. + +"That's like the old Kla'uns," she said, with a slight pressure of +his arm, "but we will not have a chance to speak until later. When +they are nearly all gone, you'll take me to get a little refreshment, +and we'll have a chat in the conservatory. But you must drop that +awfully wicked look and make yourself generally agreeable to those +women until then." + +It was, perhaps, part of this reaction which enabled him to obey +his hostess' commands with a certain recklessness that, however, +seemed to be in keeping with the previous Satanic reputation he had +all unconsciously achieved. The women listened to the cynical +flippancy of this good-looking soldier with an undisguised +admiration which in turn excited curiosity and envy from his own +sex. He saw the whispered questioning, the lifted eyebrows, +scornful shrugging of shoulders--and knew that the story of his +disgrace was in the air. But I fear this only excited him to +further recklessness and triumph. Once he thought he recognized +Miss Faulkner's figure at a distance, and even fancied that she had +been watching him; but he only redoubled his attentions to the fair +woman beside him, and looked no more. + +Yet he was glad when the guests began to drop off, the great +rooms thinned, and Susy, appearing on the arm of her husband, +coquettishly reminded him of his promise. + +"For I want to talk to you of old times. General Brant," she went +on, turning explanatorily to Boompointer, "married my adopted +mother in California--at Robles, a dear old place where I spent +my earliest years. So, you see, we are sort of relations by +marriage," she added, with delightful naivete. + +Hooker's own vainglorious allusion to his relations to the man +before him flashed across Brant's mind, but it left now only a +smile on his lips. He felt he had already become a part of the +irresponsible comedy played around him. Why should he resist, or +examine its ethics too closely? He offered his arm to Susy as they +descended the stairs, but, instead of pausing in the supper-room, +she simply passed through it with a significant pressure on his +arm, and, drawing aside a muslin curtain, stepped into the moonlit +conservatory. Behind the curtain there was a small rustic settee; +without releasing his arm she sat down, so that when he dropped +beside her, their hands met, and mutually clasped. + +"Now, Kla'uns," she said, with a slight, comfortable shiver as she +nestled beside him, "it's a little like your chair down at old +Robles, isn't it?--tell me! And to think it's five years ago! +But, Kla'uns, what's the matter? You are changed," she said, +looking at his dark face in the moonlight, "or you have something +to tell me." + +"I have." + +"And it's something dreadful, I know!" she said, wrinkling her +brows with a pretty terror. "Couldn't you pretend you had told it +to me, and let us go on just the same? Couldn't you, Kla'uns? +Tell me!" + +"I am afraid I couldn't," he said, with a sad smile. + +"Is it about yourself, Kla'uns? You know," she went on with +cheerful rapidity, "I know everything about you--I always did, you +know--and I don't care, and never did care, and it don't, and never +did, make the slightest difference to me. So don't tell it, and +waste time, Kla'uns." + +"It's not about me, but about my wife!" he said slowly. + +Her expression changed slightly + +"Oh, her!" she said after a pause. Then, half-resignedly, "Go on, +Kla'uns." + +He began. He had a dozen times rehearsed to himself his miserable +story, always feeling it keenly, and even fearing that he might be +carried away by emotion or morbid sentiment in telling it to +another. But, to his astonishment, he found himself telling it +practically, calmly, almost cynically, to his old playmate, +repressing the half devotion and even tenderness that had governed +him, from the time that his wife, disguised as the mulatto woman, +had secretly watched him at his office, to the hour that he had +passed through the lines. He withheld only the incident of Miss +Faulkner's complicity and sacrifice. + +"And she got away, after having kicked you out of your place, +Kla'uns?" said Susy, when he had ended. + +Clarence stiffened beside her. But he felt he had gone too far to +quarrel with his confidante. + +"She went away. I honestly believe we shall never meet again, or I +should not be telling you this!" + +"Kla'uns," she said lightly, taking his hand again, "don't you +believe it! She won't let you go. You're one of those men that a +woman, when she's once hooked on to, won't let go of, even when she +believes she no longer loves him, or meets bigger and better men. +I reckon it's because you're so different from other men; maybe +there are so many different things about you to hook on to, and you +don't slip off as easily as the others. Now, if you were like old +Peyton, her first husband, or like poor Jim, or even my Boompointer, +you'd be all right! No, my boy, all we can do is to try to keep her +from getting at you here. I reckon she won't trust herself in +Washington again in a hurry." + +"But I cannot stay here; my career is in the field." + +"Your career is alongside o' me, honey--and Boompointer. But +nearer ME. We'll fix all that. I heard something about your being +in disgrace, but the story was that you were sweet on some secesh +girl down there, and neglected your business, Kla'uns. But, Lordy! +to think it was only your own wife! Never mind; we'll straighten +that out. We've had worse jobs than that on. Why, there was that +commissary who was buying up dead horses at one end of the field, +and selling them to the Government for mess beef at the other; and +there was that general who wouldn't make an attack when it rained; +and the other general--you know who I mean, Kla'uns--who wouldn't +invade the State where his sister lived; but we straightened them +out, somehow, and they were a heap worse than you. We'll get you a +position in the war department here, one of the bureau offices, +where you keep your rank and your uniform--you don't look bad in +it, Kla'uns--on better pay. And you'll come and see me, and we'll +talk over old times." + +Brant felt his heart turn sick within him. But he was at her mercy +now! He said, with an effort,-- + +"But I've told you that my career--nay, my LIFE--now is in the +field." + +"Don't you be a fool, Kla'uns, and leave it there! You have done +your work of fighting--mighty good fighting, too,--and everybody +knows it. You've earned a change. Let others take your place." + +He shuddered, as he remembered that his wife had made the same +appeal. Was he a fool then, and these two women--so totally unlike +in everything--right in this? + +"Come, Kla'uns," said Susy, relapsing again against his shoulder. +"Now talk to me! You don't say what you think of me, of my home, +of my furniture, of my position--even of him! Tell me!" + +"I find you well, prosperous, and happy," he said, with a faint +smile. + +"Is that all? And how do I look?" + +She turned her still youthful, mischievous face towards him in the +moonlight. The witchery of her blue eyes was still there as of +old, the same frank irresponsibility beamed from them; her parted +lips seemed to give him back the breath of his youth. He started, +but she did not. + +"Susy, dear!" + +It was her husband's voice. + +"I quite forgot," the Senator went on, as he drew the curtain +aside, "that you are engaged with a friend; but Miss Faulkner is +waiting to say good-night, and I volunteered to find you." + +"Tell her to wait a moment," said Susy, with an impatience that was +as undisguised as it was without embarrassment or confusion. + +But Miss Faulkner, unconsciously following Mr. Boompointer, was +already upon them. For a moment the whole four were silent, +although perfectly composed. Senator Boompointer, unconscious of +any infelicity in his interruption, was calmly waiting. Clarence, +opposed suddenly to the young girl whom he believed was avoiding +his recognition, rose, coldly imperturbable. Miss Faulkner, +looking taller and more erect in the long folds of her satin cloak, +neither paled nor blushed, as she regarded Susy and Brant with a +smile of well-bred apology. + +"I expect to leave Washington to-morrow, and may not be able to +call again," she said, "or I would not have so particularly pressed +a leave-taking upon you." + +"I was talking with my old friend, General Brant," said Susy, more +by way of introduction than apology. + +Brant bowed. For an instant the clear eyes of Miss Faulkner +slipped icily across his as she made him an old-fashioned Southern +courtesy, and, taking Susy's arm, she left the room. Brant did not +linger, but took leave of his host almost in the same breath. At +the front door a well-appointed carriage of one of the Legations +had just rolled into waiting. He looked back; he saw Miss +Faulkner, erect and looking like a bride in her gauzy draperies, +descending the stairs before the waiting servants. He felt his +heart beat strangely. He hesitated, recalled himself with an +effort, hurriedly stepped from the porch into the path, as he heard +the carriage door close behind him in the distance, and then felt +the dust from her horse's hoofs rise around him as she drove past +him and away. + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +Although Brant was convinced as soon as he left the house that he +could not accept anything from the Boompointer influence, and that +his interview with Susy was fruitless, he knew that he must +temporize. While he did not believe that his old playmate would +willingly betray him, he was uneasy when he thought of the vanity +and impulsiveness which might compromise him--or of a possible +jealousy that might seek revenge. Yet he had no reason to believe +that Susy's nature was jealous, or that she was likely to have any +cause; but the fact remained that Miss Faulkner's innocent +intrusion upon their tete-a-tete affected him more strongly than +anything else in his interview with Susy. Once out of the +atmosphere of that house, it struck him, too, that Miss Faulkner +was almost as much of an alien in it as himself. He wondered what +she had been doing there. Could it be possible that she was +obtaining information for the South? But he rejected the idea as +quickly as it had occurred to him. Perhaps there could be no +stronger proof of the unconscious influence the young girl already +had over him. + +He remembered the liveries of the diplomatic carriage that had +borne her away, and ascertained without difficulty that her sister +had married one of the foreign ministers, and that she was a guest +in his house. But he was the more astonished to hear that she and +her sister were considered to be Southern Unionists--and were +greatly petted in governmental circles for their sacrificing +fidelity to the flag. His informant, an official in the State +Department, added that Miss Matilda might have been a good deal of +a madcap at the outbreak of the war--for the sisters had a brother +in the Confederate service--but that she had changed greatly, and, +indeed, within a month. "For," he added, "she was at the White +House for the first time last week, and they say the President +talked more to her than to any other woman." + +The indescribable sensation with which this simple information +filled Brant startled him more than the news itself. Hope, joy, +fear, distrust, and despair, alternately distracted him. He +recalled Miss Faulkner's almost agonizing glance of appeal to him in +the drawing-room at Susy's, and it seemed to be equally consistent +with the truth of what he had just heard--or some monstrous +treachery and deceit of which she might be capable. Even now she +might be a secret emissary of some spy within the President's +family; she might have been in correspondence with some traitor in +the Boompointer clique, and her imploring glance only the result of +a fear of exposure. Or, again, she might have truly recanted after +her escapade at Gray Oaks, and feared only his recollection of her +as go-between of spies. And yet both of these presumptions were +inconsistent with her conduct in the conservatory. It seemed +impossible that this impulsive woman, capable of doing what he had +himself known her to do, and equally sensitive to the shame or joy +of such impulses, should be the same conventional woman of society +who had so coldly recognized and parted from him. + +But this interval of doubt was transitory. The next day he +received a dispatch from the War Department, ordering him to report +himself for duty at once. With a beating heart he hurried to the +Secretary. But that official had merely left a memorandum with his +assistant directing General Brant to accompany some fresh levies to +a camp of "organization" near the front. Brant felt a chill of +disappointment. Duties of this kind had been left to dubious +regular army veterans, hurriedly displaced general officers, and +favored detrimentals. But if it was not restoration, it was no +longer inaction, and it was at least a release from Washington. + +It was also evidently the result of some influence--but hardly that +of the Boompointers, for he knew that Susy wished to keep him at +the Capital. Was there another power at work to send him away from +Washington? His previous doubts returned. Nor were they dissipated +when the chief of the bureau placed a letter before him with the +remark that it had been entrusted to him by a lady with the request +that it should be delivered only into his own hands. + +"She did not know your hotel address, but ascertained you were to +call here. She said it was of some importance. There is no mystery +about it, General," continued the official with a mischievous glance +at Brant's handsome, perplexed face, "although it's from a very +pretty woman--whom we all know." + +"Mrs. Boompointer?" suggested Brant, with affected lightness. + +It was a maladroit speech. The official's face darkened. + +"We have not yet become a Postal Department for the Boompointers, +General," he said dryly, "however great their influence elsewhere. +It was from rather a different style of woman--Miss Faulkner. You +will receive your papers later at your hotel, and leave to-night." + +Brant's unlucky slip was still potent enough to divert the official +attention, or he would have noticed the change in his visitor's +face, and the abruptness of his departure. + +Once in the street, Brant tore off the envelope. But beneath it +was another, on which was written in a delicate, refined hand: +"Please do not open this until you reach your destination." + +Then she knew he was going! And perhaps this was her influence? +All his suspicions again returned. She knew he was going near the +lines, and his very appointment, through her power, might be a plot +to serve her and the enemy! Was this letter, which she was +entrusting to him, the cover of some missive to her Southern +friends which she expected him to carry--perhaps as a return for +her own act of self-sacrifice? Was this the appeal she had been +making to his chivalry, his gratitude, his honor? The perspiration +stood in beads on his forehead. What defect lay hidden in his +nature that seemed to make him an easy victim of these intriguing +women? He had not even the excuse of gallantry; less susceptible +to the potencies of the sex than most men, he was still compelled +to bear that reputation. He remembered his coldness to Miss +Faulkner in the first days of their meeting, and her effect upon +his subalterns. Why had she selected him from among them--when she +could have modeled the others like wax to her purposes? Why? And +yet with the question came a possible answer that he hardly dared +to think of--that in its very vagueness seemed to fill him with a +stimulating thrill and hopefulness. He quickened his pace. He +would take the letter, and yet be master of himself when the time +came to open it. + +That time came three days later, in his tent at Three Pines +Crossing. As he broke open the envelope, he was relieved to find +that it contained no other inclosure, and seemed intended only for +himself. It began abruptly:-- + +"When you read this, you will understand why I did not speak to you +when we met last night; why I even dreaded that you might speak to +me, knowing, as I did, what I ought to tell you at that place and +moment--something you could only know from me. I did not know you +were in Washington, although I knew you were relieved; I had no way +of seeing you or sending to you before, and I only came to Mrs. +Boompointer's party in the hope of hearing news of you. + +"You know that my brother was captured by your pickets in company +with another officer. He thinks you suspected the truth--that he +and his friend were hovering near your lines to effect the escape +of the spy. But he says that, although they failed to help her, +she did escape, or was passed through the lines by your connivance. +He says that you seemed to know her, that from what Rose--the +mulatto woman--told him, you and she were evidently old friends. +I would not speak of this, nor intrude upon your private affairs, +only that I think you ought to know that I had no knowledge of it +when I was in your house, but believed her to be a stranger to you. +You gave me no intimation that you knew her, and I believed that +you were frank with me. But I should not speak of this at all--for +I believe that it would have made no difference to me in repairing +the wrong that I thought I had done you--only that, as I am forced +by circumstances to tell you the terrible ending of this story, you +ought to know it all. + +"My brother wrote to me that the evening after you left, the +burying party picked up the body of what they believed to be a +mulatto woman lying on the slope. It was not Rose, but the body of +the very woman--the real and only spy--whom you had passed through +the lines. She was accidentally killed by the Confederates in the +first attack upon you, at daybreak. But only my brother and his +friend recognized her through her blackened face and disguise, and +on the plea that she was a servant of one of their friends, they +got permission from the division commander to take her away, and +she was buried by her friends and among her people in the little +cemetery of Three Pines Crossing, not far from where you have gone. +My brother thought that I ought to tell you this: it seems that he +and his friend had a strange sympathy for you in what they appear +to know or guess of your relations with that woman, and I think he +was touched by what he thought was your kindness and chivalry to +him on account of his sister. But I do not think he ever knew, or +will know, how great is the task that he has imposed upon me. + +"You know now, do you not, WHY I did not speak to you when we +first met; it seemed so impossible to do it in an atmosphere and a +festivity that was so incongruous with the dreadful message I was +charged with. And when I had to meet you later--perhaps I may have +wronged you--but it seemed to me that you were so preoccupied and +interested with other things that I might perhaps only be wearying +you with something you cared little for, or perhaps already knew +and had quickly forgotten. + +"I had been wanting to say something else to you when I had got rid +of my dreadful message. I do not know if you still care to hear +it. But you were once generous enough to think that I had done you +a service in bringing a letter to your commander. Although I know +better than anybody else the genuine devotion to your duty that +made you accept my poor service, from all that I can hear, you have +never had the credit of it. Will you not try me again? I am more +in favor here, and I might yet be more successful in showing your +superiors how true you have been to your trust, even if you have +little faith in your friend, Matilda Faulkner." + +For a long time he remained motionless, with the letter in his +hand. Then he arose, ordered his horse, and galloped away. + +There was little difficulty in finding the cemetery of Three Pines +Crossing--a hillside slope, hearsed with pine and cypress, and +starred with white crosses, that in the distance looked like +flowers. Still less was there in finding the newer marble shaft +among the older lichen-spotted slabs, which bore the simple words: +"Alice Benham, Martyr." A few Confederate soldiers, under still +plainer and newer wooden headstones, carved only with initials, lay +at her feet. Brant sank on his knees beside the grave, but he was +shocked to see that the base of the marble was stained with the red +pollen of the fateful lily, whose blossoms had been heaped upon her +mound, but whose fallen petals lay dark and sodden in decay. + +How long he remained there he did not know. And then a solitary +bugle from the camp seemed to summon him, as it had once before +summoned him, and he went away--as he had gone before--to a +separation that he now knew was for all time. + +Then followed a month of superintendence and drill, and the +infusing into the little camp under his instruction the spirit +which seemed to be passing out of his own life forever. Shut in by +alien hills on the borderland of the great struggle, from time to +time reports reached him of the bitter fighting, and almost +disastrous successes of his old division commander. Orders came +from Washington to hurry the preparation of his raw levies to the +field, and a faint hope sprang up in his mind. But following it +came another dispatch ordering his return to the Capital. + +He reached it with neither hope nor fear--so benumbed had become +his spirit under this last trial, and what seemed to be now the +mockery of this last sacrifice to his wife. Though it was no +longer a question of her life and safety, he knew that he could +still preserve her memory from stain by keeping her secret, even +though its divulgings might clear his own. For that reason, he had +even hesitated to inform Susy of her death, in the fear that, in +her thoughtless irresponsibility and impulsiveness, she might be +tempted to use it in his favor. He had made his late appointment a +plea for her withholding any present efforts to assist him. He +even avoided the Boompointers' house, in what he believed was +partly a duty to the memory of his wife. But he saw no inconsistency +in occasionally extending his lonely walks to the vicinity of a +foreign Legation, or in being lifted with a certain expectation at +the sight of its liveries on the Avenue. There was a craving for +sympathy in his heart, which Miss Faulkner's letter had awakened. + +Meantime, he had reported himself for duty at the War Department-- +with little hope, however, in that formality. But he was surprised +the next day when the chief of the bureau informed him that his +claim was before the President. + +"I was not aware that I had presented any claim," he said, a little +haughtily. + +The bureau chief looked up with some surprise. This quiet, +patient, reserved man had puzzled him once or twice before. + +"Perhaps I should say 'case,' General," he said, drily. "But the +personal interest of the highest executive in the land strikes me +as being desirable in anything." + +"I only mean that I have obeyed the orders of the department in +reporting myself here, as I have done," said Brant, with less +feeling, but none the less firmness; "and I should imagine it was +not the duty of a soldier to question them. Which I fancy a +'claim' or a 'case' would imply." + +He had no idea of taking this attitude before, but the +disappointments of the past month, added to this first official +notice of his disgrace, had brought forward that dogged, reckless, +yet half-scornful obstinacy that was part of his nature. + +The official smiled. + +"I suppose, then, you are waiting to hear from the President," he +said drily. + +"I am awaiting orders from the department," returned Brant quietly, +"but whether they originate in the President as commander-in-chief, +or not--it is not for me to inquire." + +Even when he reached his hotel this half-savage indifference which +had taken the place of his former incertitude had not changed. It +seemed to him that he had reached the crisis of his life where he +was no longer a free agent, and could wait, superior alike to +effort or expectation. And it was with a merely dispassionate +curiosity that he found a note the next morning from the +President's private secretary, informing him that the President +would see him early that day. + +A few hours later he was ushered through the public rooms of the +White House to a more secluded part of the household. The +messenger stopped before a modest door and knocked. It was opened +by a tall figure--the President himself. He reached out a long arm +to Brant, who stood hesitatingly on the threshold, grasped his +hand, and led him into the room. It had a single, large, +elaborately draped window and a handsome medallioned carpet, which +contrasted with the otherwise almost appalling simplicity of the +furniture. A single plain angular desk, with a blotting pad and a +few sheets of large foolscap upon it, a waste-paper basket and four +plain armchairs, completed the interior with a contrast as simple +and homely as its long-limbed, black-coated occupant. Releasing +the hand of the general to shut a door which opened into another +apartment, the President shoved an armchair towards him and sank +somewhat wearily into another before the desk. But only for a +moment; the long shambling limbs did not seem to adjust themselves +easily to the chair; the high narrow shoulders drooped to find a +more comfortable lounging attitude, shifted from side to side, and +the long legs moved dispersedly. Yet the face that was turned +towards Brant was humorous and tranquil. + +"I was told I should have to send for you if I wished to see you," +he said smilingly. + +Already mollified, and perhaps again falling under the previous +influence of this singular man, Brant began somewhat hesitatingly +to explain. + +But the President checked him gently,-- + +"You don't understand. It was something new to my experience here +to find an able-bodied American citizen with an honest genuine +grievance who had to have it drawn from him like a decayed tooth. +But you have been here before. I seem to remember your face." + +Brant's reserve had gone. He admitted that he had twice sought an +audience--but-- + +"You dodged the dentist! That was wrong." As Brant made a slight +movement of deprecation the President continued: "I understand! +Not from fear of giving pain to yourself but to others. I don't +know that THAT is right, either. A certain amount of pain must be +suffered in this world--even by one's enemies. Well, I have looked +into your case, General Brant." He took up a piece of paper from +his desk, scrawled with two or three notes in pencil. "I think +this is the way it stands. You were commanding a position at Gray +Oaks when information was received by the department that, either +through neglect or complicity, spies were passing through your +lines. There was no attempt to prove your neglect; your orders, +the facts of your personal care and precaution, were all before the +department. But it was also shown that your wife, from whom you +were only temporarily separated, was a notorious secessionist; +that, before the war, you yourself were suspected, and that, +therefore, you were quite capable of evading your own orders, which +you may have only given as a blind. On this information you were +relieved by the department of your command. Later on it was +discovered that the spy was none other than your own wife, +disguised as a mulatto; that, after her arrest by your own +soldiers, you connived at her escape--and this was considered +conclusive proof of--well, let us say--your treachery." + +"But I did not know it was my wife until she was arrested," said +Brant impulsvely. + +The President knitted his eyebrows humorously. + +"Don't let us travel out of the record, General. You're as bad as +the department. The question was one of your personal treachery, +but you need not accept the fact that you were justly removed +because your wife was a spy. Now, General, I am an old lawyer, and +I don't mind telling you that in Illinois we wouldn't hang a yellow +dog on that evidence before the department. But when I was asked +to look into the matter by your friends, I discovered something of +more importance to you. I had been trying to find a scrap of +evidence that would justify the presumption that you had sent +information to the enemy. I found that it was based upon the fact +of the enemy being in possession of knowledge at the first battle +at Gray Oaks, which could only have been obtained from our side, +and which led to a Federal disaster; that you, however, retrieved +by your gallantry. I then asked the secretary if he was prepared +to show that you had sent the information with that view, or that +you had been overtaken by a tardy sense of repentance. He preferred +to consider my suggestion as humorous. But the inquiry led to my +further discovery that the only treasonable correspondence actually +in evidence was found upon the body of a trusted Federal officer, +and had been forwarded to the division commander. But there was no +record of it in the case." + +"Why, I forwarded it myself," said Brant eagerly. + +"So the division commander writes," said the President, smiling, +"and he forwarded it to the department. But it was suppressed in +some way. Have you any enemies, General Brant?" + +"Not that I know of." + +"Then you probably have. You are young and successful. Think of +the hundred other officers who naturally believe themselves better +than you are, and haven't a traitorous wife. Still, the department +may have made an example of you for the benefit of the only man who +couldn't profit by it." + +"Might it not have been, sir, that this suppression was for the +good report of the service--as the chief offender was dead?" + +"I am glad to hear you say so, General, for it is the argument I +have used successfully in behalf of your wife." + +"Then you know it all, sir?" said Brant after a gloomy pause. + +"All, I think. Come, General, you seemed just now to be uncertain +about your enemies. Let me assure you, you need not be so in +regard to your friends." + +"I dare to hope I have found one, sir," said Brant with almost +boyish timidity. + +"Oh, not me!" said the President, with a laugh of deprecation. +"Some one much more potent." + +"May I know his name, Mr. President?" + +"No, for it is a woman. You were nearly ruined by one, General. I +suppose it's quite right that you should be saved by one. And, of +course, irregularly." + +"A woman!" echoed Brant. + +"Yes; one who was willing to confess herself a worse spy than your +wife--a double traitor--to save you! Upon my word, General, I +don't know if the department was far wrong; a man with such an +alternately unsettling and convincing effect upon a woman's highest +political convictions should be under some restraint. Luckily the +department knows nothing of it." + +"Nor would any one else have known from me," said Brant eagerly. +"I trust that she did not think--that you, sir, did not for an +instant believe that I"-- + +"Oh dear, no! Nobody would have believed you! It was her free +confidence to me. That was what made the affair so difficult to +handle. For even her bringing your dispatch to the division +commander looked bad for you; and you know he even doubted its +authenticity." + +"Does she--does Miss Faulkner know the spy was my wife?" hesitated +Brant. + +The President twisted himself in his chair, so as to regard Brant +more gravely with his deep-set eyes, and then thoughtfully rubbed +his leg. + +"Don't let us travel out of the record, General," he said after a +pause. But as the color surged into Brant's cheek he raised his +eyes to the ceiling, and said, in half-humorous recollection,-- + +"No, I think THAT fact was first gathered from your other friend-- +Mr. Hooker." + +"Hooker!" said Brant, indignantly; "did he come here?" + +"Pray don't destroy my faith in Mr. Hooker, General," said the +President, in half-weary, half-humorous deprecation. "Don't tell +me that any of his inventions are TRUE! Leave me at least that +magnificent liar--the one perfectly intelligible witness you have. +For from the time that he first appeared here with a grievance and +a claim for a commission, he has been an unspeakable joy to me and +a convincing testimony to you. Other witnesses have been partisans +and prejudiced; Mr. Hooker was frankly true to himself. How else +should I have known of the care you took to disguise yourself, save +the honor of your uniform, and run the risk of being shot as an +unknown spy at your wife's side, except from his magnificent +version of HIS part in it? How else should I have known the story +of your discovery of the Californian conspiracy, except from his +supreme portrayal of it, with himself as the hero? No, you must +not forget to thank Mr. Hooker when you meet him. Miss Faulkner is +at present more accessible; she is calling on some members of my +family in the next room. Shall I leave you with her?" + +Brant rose with a pale face and a quickly throbbing heart as the +President, glancing at the clock, untwisted himself from the chair, +and shook himself out full length, and rose gradually to his feet. + +"Your wish for active service is granted, General Brant," he said +slowly, "and you will at once rejoin your old division commander, +who is now at the head of the Tenth Army Corps. But," he said, +after a deliberate pause, "there are certain rules and regulations +of your service that even I cannot, with decent respect to your +department, override. You will, therefore, understand that you +cannot rejoin the army in your former position." + +The slight flush that came to Brant's cheek quickly passed. And +there was only the unmistakable sparkle of renewed youth in his +frank eyes as he said-- + +"Let me go to the front again, Mr. President, and I care not HOW." + +The President smiled, and, laying his heavy hand on Brant's +shoulder, pushed him gently towards the door of the inner room. + +"I was only about to say," he added, as he opened the door, "that +it would be necessary for you to rejoin your promoted commander as +a major-general. And," he continued, lifting his voice, as he +gently pushed his guest into the room, "he hasn't even thanked me +for it, Miss Faulkner!" + +The door closed behind him, and he stood for a moment dazed, and +still hearing the distant voice of the President, in the room he +had just quitted, now welcoming a new visitor. But the room before +him, opening into a conservatory, was empty, save for a single +figure that turned, half timidly, half mischievously, towards him. +The same quick, sympathetic glance was in both their faces; the +same timid, happy look in both their eyes. He moved quickly to her +side. + +"Then you knew that--that--woman was my wife?" he said, hurriedly, +as he grasped her hand. + +She cast a half-appealing look at his face--a half-frightened one +around the room and at the open door beyond. + +"Let us," she said faintly, "go into the conservatory." + + . . . . . . + +It is but a few years ago that the veracious chronicler of these +pages moved with a wondering crowd of sightseers in the gardens of +the White House. The war cloud had long since lifted and vanished; +the Potomac flowed peacefully by and on to where once lay the broad +plantation of a great Confederate leader--now a national cemetery +that had gathered the soldier dead of both sections side by side in +equal rest and honor--and the great goddess once more looked down +serenely from the dome of the white Capitol. The chronicler's +attention was attracted by an erect, handsome soldierly-looking +man, with a beard and moustache slightly streaked with gray, +pointing out the various objects of interest to a boy of twelve or +fourteen at his side. + +"Yes; although, as I told you, this house belongs only to the +President of the United States and his family," said the gentleman, +smilingly, "in that little conservatory I proposed to your mother." + +"Oh! Clarence, how can you!" said the lady, reprovingly, "you know +it was LONG after that!" + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Clarence, by Bret Harte + diff --git a/old/clrnc10.zip b/old/clrnc10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..97bb9b9 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/clrnc10.zip |