“It’s the truth! It’s the simple truth! Listen! You think Nathaniel’s harmed our cause, perhaps. He hasn’t! He’s helped it! If it hadn’t been for Nathaniel, we’d never have known Marie de Sabrevois was with the British: never have suspected what she was doing. Now we know. I know she’s hoodwinked people right and left. She hoodwinked you: she had a hand in almost having Natanis shot for a spy: she sent advance information to Montgolfier in Canada—telling the size of the army Burgoyne was bringing, so to keep the Canadians true to English rule: she provided Easton and Brown and Hazen with lies for their attacks on Arnold, whom they hated. She sent an innocent girl, Joseph Phipps’s sister, to Albany to get the names of the Albany Tories who could be used against us by the British. As sure as I’m alive, it was Marie de Sabrevois who got the false information through, even to Congress, that Burgoyne’s army wasn’t coming by way of Ticonderoga, but was going around by sea and join Howe in New York—and that’s why Congress hadn’t provided a garrison large enough to defend the place. And now, added to all this, is the story of the silver bullets. It fits into what we know of Marie de Sabrevois. That’s her story! She sent it out!”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Nason admitted. “I guess she did.”

“Then you can see,” I said, “that in reality Nathaniel has done us a service! We’d never have suspected any of these things, except for Nathaniel; so it seems to me that in spite of his mistakes, you owe him something. It seems to me you at least owe it to him to think fairly of him.”

My arguments, I knew, were specious: yet there was more than a little truth in them; and I hoped that Nason, being a friend, would recognize their truth and ignore their weaknesses.

He looked me in the eye. “You think your brother hasn’t been a party to any of her schemes?”

“I know he hasn’t! I know it! He’s my brother. His face has come to be like a book to me. I can tell, at a glance, when his feelings are hurt: when he’s disgusted: when he’s interested: when he’s amused: when he’s lying. I questioned him about Easton and Brown: about the list of Albany Tories: about Marie’s activities in behalf of the British. He knows nothing about them. Nothing! If he’d been lying, I’d have known it. He’s just a man in love—just a fool—just a lovesick fool.”

“Just the way Stevie used to be,” Cap Huff growled. He shot an apprehensive glance at Nason when he said it, and I was grateful to him.