He interrupted with gesture expressive of complete understanding and appreciation.
“Champe is but a common soldier, and a most fanatical patriot, like yourself, Captain Page. I have known this last, or suspected it, from the beginning. There will be no punishment for him greater than that which will be the greatest for a man of his stamp—to be obliged upon a warrant of life or death to make good his lately sworn oath of allegiance in battle. He rejoins the legion to-night, and when the fleet sails he will go with it, to live or die as he fights or refuses to fight.”
I stood up, hoping he would take it as a hint that I desired to be alone.
“There is nothing more, then, I believe,” I said. “Due report of this night’s doings will be sent to Colonel Baylor, I trust; and I shall be glad if the charge against me shall stand without reference to my self-appointed errand. I ask this as much for your sake as for my own, Mr. Arnold. Others might not understand why I found my mission impossible at its final turning point.”
“You mean that the report shall go out that you were executed merely as a spy caught within the enemy’s lines?”
“That was my meaning; yes.”
In a flash he held out his hand, and I forgot that he was a traitor to the cause I loved and grasped it heartily.
“You are a man in all your inches, Captain Page,” he declared warmly; and then: “I would to God I could do you a real service, sir! You think there will be only one woman to be broken-hearted, but I assure you there will be two. I shall ill know how to face the second one when I have to tell her that you spared me of your own free will, and that yet you had to die!”
“Let your gratitude to the other woman nerve you to that task, Mr. Arnold,” I put in quietly. “It was Mistress Beatrix Leigh who showed me my duty to her—and to myself.”
“Ah, these women!” he said gently. “A man never sees himself as he ought to be until he looks into the crystal mirror of a good woman’s soul. You are prodigiously to be pitied, Captain Page—but not more than you are to be envied. A little respite—time granted you for a meeting and a parting with this young woman who hates me well but hates dishonor more—possibly my word to Sir Henry Clinton would run thus far. Shall I try it, sir?”