"
"Did he tell you that?"
"He did not. Like the true gentleman he has ever shown himself to be,
he endeavored to disguise the facts, to withhold from me all knowledge
of your dastardly action. I know it by the infamous sentence pronounced
against him and by your falsehood to me."
"Edith, you mistake," he urged anxiously. "I--I was told that he had
been sent North."
She drew a deep breath, as though she could scarcely grasp the full
audacity of his pretence to ignorance.
"You appeared to be fully informed but now as to his death sentence."
"Yes, I heard of it while away, and intended telling you as soon as I
reached our quarters."
I could feel the scorn of his miserable deception as it curled her lip,
and her figure seemed to straighten between us.
"Then," she said slowly, "you will doubtless agree that I have done no
more than was right, and will therefore permit him this chance of
escape from so unmerited a fate; for you know as well as I do that he
has been wrongly condemned."
He stepped forward with a half-smothered oath, and rested one hand
heavily upon her shoulder.
"An exceedingly neat trap," he said, with a grim laugh, "a most
ingenious snare; yet hardly one I am likely to be caught in. I am not
quite so green, my lady. What! let that fellow go? become the laughing
stock of you and your Johnny Reb lover? I rather guess not, madam.
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