It wanted still an hour of the darkness that would probably close the fight of that day.  Could he hold out, keeping his offensive position so long?  A hasty council with his officers showed him that the weakness of their position had already infected them.  They reminded him that his line of retreat was still open—­that in the course of the night the enemy, although still pressing towards the division centre, might yet turn and outflank him—­or that their strangely delayed supports might come up before morning.  Brant’s glass, however, remained fixed on the main column, still pursuing its way along the ridge.  It struck him suddenly, however, that the steady current had stopped, spread out along the crest on both sides, and was now at right angles with its previous course.  There had been a check!  The next moment the thunder of guns along the whole horizon, and the rising cloud of smoke, revealed a line of battle.  The division centre was engaged.  The opportunity he had longed for had come—­the desperate chance to throw himself on their rear and cut his way through to the division—­but it had come too late!  He looked at his shattered ranks—­scarce a regiment remained.  Even as a demonstration, the attack would fail against the enemy’s superior numbers.  Nothing clearly was left to him now but to remain where he was—­within supporting distance, and await the issue of the fight beyond.  He was putting up his glass, when the dull boom of cannon in the extreme western limit of the horizon attracted his attention.  By the still gleaming sky he could see a long gray line stealing up from the valley from the distant rear of the headquarters to join the main column.  They were the missing supports!  His heart leaped.  He held the key of the mystery now.  The one imperfect detail of the enemy’s plan was before him.  The supports, coming later from the west, had only seen the second signal from the window—­when Miss Faulkner had replaced the vase—­and had avoided his position.  It was impossible to limit the effect of this blunder.  If the young girl who had thus saved him had reached the division commander with his message in time, he might be forewarned, and even profit by it.  His own position would be less precarious, as the enemy, already engaged in front, would be unable to recover their position in the rear and correct the blunder.  The bulk of their column had already streamed past him.  If defeated, there was always the danger that it might be rolled back upon him—­but he conjectured that the division commander would attempt to prevent the junction of the supports with the main column by breaking between them, crowding them from the ridge, and joining him.  As the last stragglers of the rear guard swept by, Brant’s bugles were already recalling the skirmishers.  He redoubled his pickets, and resolved to wait and watch.

And there was the more painful duty of looking after the wounded and the dead.  The larger rooms of the headquarters had already been used as a hospital.  Passing from cot to cot, recognizing in the faces now drawn with agony, or staring in vacant unconsciousness, the features that he had seen only a few hours before flushed with enthusiasm and excitement, something of his old doubting, questioning nature returned.  Was there no way but this?  How far was he—­moving among them unscathed and uninjured—­responsible?