He drew a tattered sheet of paper from his pocket. She saw the familiar small handwriting and snatched it from him. As she read, he watched her with angry satisfaction. He knew the scrawled hurried lines by heart.

FORT STODDEILT— March 4th

I am under arrest, to leave here tomorrow for the North. We will pass through Carolina in a week. My guard numbers nine. A small force can effect my release. Chester will be the best place for this.

A

'I don't understand!' she cried. 'How did this get here? It's directed to me. Why did I not receive it?'

He was silent. He did not regret having intercepted her letter, but he did regret that his anger had betrayed him into giving it to her now.

She saw his expression, and understood. 'You kept it from me,' she whispered. 'We could have rescued him, as he says, and now it is too late.'

He was frightened at the change in her. He had expected anger, a sharpening of the contempt with which she had been regarding him, but not this stony despair. She sank into a chair and fastened her gaze on a comer of the carved-wood arm. Then her head drooped.

' He must have thought I had deserted him. He must have hoped, and waited, scanning each face, looking for friends, for those who believe in him—and there was nothing. Oh, how could you do that to him—and to me?'

Joseph touched her bowed head with a clumsy hand. 'Be reasonable, Theo. What could we do? The Government has arrested him. How could I effect his release?'

'Of course, you could have. You have authority in this State. A score of men could have done it. But you're a coward. You have no loyalty. You think of nothing but your own skin. I despise you'. She spoke with a toneless lack of emphasis that stabbed him.

'You are unjust, Theo,' he stammered. 'I'm—I'm——'

He closed his lips with a gulp. He'd be damned if he'd try to justify himself. He'd acted as would any reasonable man. He turned on his heel and stamped into the house, venting his anger by administering to Cupid a lusty kick as that small black boy, who had been hovering in the hall, neglected to scamper for safety with requisite speed.

Theodosia stayed alone on the porch. She thought: Just here he sat with me, on that golden October afternoon when he first told me of it—of 'X'. She saw again his transfigured face, felt the glory and the majesty that he had made her feel. Still behind her, on the table in the drawing-room, stood the little bust of Napoleon. 'Do you dare to think that I am not at least the equal of that little Corsican peasant?'