“That is not enough!  Speak slowly, plainly.  I must know everything.  How and in what way have you betrayed me?”

She looked at him imploringly—­reassured, yet awed by his gentleness.

“You won’t believe me; you cannot believe me! for I do not even know.  I have taken and exchanged letters—­whose contents I never saw—­between the Confederates and a spy who comes to this house, but who is far away by this time.  I did it because I thought you hated and despised me because I thought it was my duty to help my cause—­because you said it was ‘war’ between us—­but I never spied on you.  I swear it.”

“Then how do you know of this attack?” he said calmly.

She brightened, half timidly, half hopefully.

“There is a window in the wing of this house that overlooks the slope near the Confederate lines.  There was a signal placed in it—­not by me—­but I know it meant that as long as it was there the plot, whatever it was, was not ripe, and that no attack would be made on you as long as it was visible.  That much I know,—­that much the spy had to tell me, for we both had to guard that room in turns.  I wanted to keep this dreadful thing off—­until”—­her voice trembled, “until,” she added hurriedly, seeing his calm eyes were reading her very soul, “until I went away—­and for that purpose I withheld some of the letters that were given me.  But this morning, while I was away from the house, I looked back and saw that the signal was no longer there.  Some one had changed it.  I ran back, but I was too late—­God help me!—­as you see.”

The truth flashed upon Brant.  It was his own hand that had precipitated the attack.  But a larger truth came to him now, like a dazzling inspiration.  If he had thus precipitated the attack before they were ready, there was a chance that it was imperfect, and there was still hope.  But there was no trace of this visible in his face as he fixed his eyes calmly on hers, although his pulses were halting in expectancy as he said—­

“Then the spy had suspected you, and changed it.”

“Oh, no,” she said eagerly, “for the spy was with me and was frightened too.  We both ran back together—­you remember—­she was stopped by the patrol!”

She checked herself suddenly, but too late.  Her cheeks blazed, her head sank, with the foolish identification of the spy into which her eagerness had betrayed her.

But Brant appeared not to notice it.  He was, in fact, puzzling his brain to conceive what information the stupid mulatto woman could have obtained here.  His strength, his position was no secret to the enemy—­there was nothing to gain from him.  She must have been, like the trembling, eager woman before him, a mere tool of others.

“Did this woman live here?” he said.

“No,” she said.  “She lived with the Manlys, but had friends whom she visited at your general’s headquarters.”