"My lord, my mission requires a frank confidence. I have heard my father say you had a generous and feeling heart—that you were a man to whom the king had most wisely committed his cause in this most trying war: that your soul was gifted with moderation, wisdom, forecast, firmness—and that such a spirit as yours was fit to master and command the rude natures of soldiers, and to compel them to walk in the paths of justice and mercy. All this and more have I heard my father say, and this encouraged me to seek you in your camp, and to tell you the plain and undisguised truth touching those charges against Major Butler. As Heaven above hears me, I have said nothing but the simple truth. Arthur Butler never dreamt of harm to my dear father."
"He is a brave soldier," said Henry, "and if your lordship would give him a chance, and put him before the man who invented the lie, he would make the scoundrel eat his words, and they should be handed to him on the major's sword-point."
"The gentleman is happy" said the chief, "in two such zealous friends. You have not answered me—is your father aware of this visit, Miss Lindsay?"
"He is ignorant even of the nature of the charge against Arthur Butler," replied the lady. "He was absent from the Dove Cote when the news arrived; and, fearing that delay might be disastrous, we took the matter in hand ourselves."
"You might have written."
"The subject, so please your lordship, was too near to our hearts to put it to the hazard of a letter."
"It is a warm zeal, and deserves to be requited with a life's devotion," said Cornwallis. "You insinuated, young sir, just now, that you suspected the author of this imputed slander."
"My brother is rash, and speaks hastily," interrupted Mildred.
"Whom were you about to name?" asked the general, of Henry.
"There was a man named Tyrrel," replied the youth, "that has been whispering in my father's ear somewhat concerning a proposal for my sister" (here Mildred cast a keen glance at her brother and bit her lip) "and they say, love sometimes makes men desperate, and I took a passing notion that, may be, he might have been at the bottom of it; I know nothing positively to make me think so, but only speak from what I have read in books."