Another stranger, Captain Prewitt, had been recalled to England a few months before, out of desperation. His Winchester had escaped the epidemic, as they were ordinarily assigned to Halifax covert. He had been stationed on a lonely circuit out in Quebec to put him out of the way of anyone hearing his radical political views, as he freely acknowledged.

‘Or perhaps it was my poetry,’ Prewitt said, laughing at himself, ‘but my pride can better stand condemnation of my politics than of my art, so I choose to take it so. And this is Captain Latour,’ a French Royalist turned British officer. Hesterfield and the two others, Reynolds and Gounod, were Prewitt's political sympathizers, if a little quieter than he on the subject, and Laurence gradually realized the little group not supporters of his act, but were divided from the rest of the company precisely because they quarrelled over its morality.

‘Murder, murder most foul, there is no other word,’ Reynolds declared, covering Laurence's hand with his own, pinning it to the table by the wrist, and looking at him with the focused, earnest expression of the profoundly drunk. Laurence did not know what to say. He had agreed, and had laid down his life to prevent it, but he did not care to be congratulated for it, by a stranger.

‘Treason is another word,’ another officer said, at the nearest populated table, making no pretence about eavesdropping. A half-empty bottle of whiskey stood before him.

‘Hear, hear,’ another man said.

There were too many bottles in the room, and too many angry and disappointed men. It was an invitation for a scene. Laurence disengaged his hand. He would have liked to excuse himself and shift tables, but Frette had abandoned him to Prewitt and his willing company, and Laurence could not imagine imposing himself on anyone else in the room. ‘I beg you gentlemen not to speak of it,’ he said quietly, to the table. But to no avail. Reynolds was already arguing with the whiskey-drinker, and their voices were rising.

Laurence set his jaw, and tried not to listen. ‘And I say,’ the whiskey-drinker was saying, ‘that he is a traitor who ought to be drug outside, strung up, and drawn and quartered after, and you with him, if you say otherwise—’

‘Medieval sentiment—’ They were both standing now, Reynolds shaking off Gounod's half-hearted restraining hand to get up. Their voices were loud enough to drown all nearby conversation.

Laurence rose, and catching Reynolds by the shoulder firmly, pressed him back towards his chair. ‘Sir, you do me no kindness by this. Leave off,’ he said, low and sharply.

‘That's right, let him teach you how to be a coward,’ the other man said.