"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.