Part 19 (1/2)

”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 a.s.sure 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! n.o.body 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.”