*****

An aching under the bandage around his head where a spent bullet had grazed his scalp, and the sound of impossible voices in his ears were all he knew as he struggled slowly back to consciousness again.  Even then it still seemed a delusion,—­for he was lying on a cot in his own hospital, yet with officers of the division staff around him, and the division commander himself standing by his side, and regarding him with an air of grave but not unkindly concern.  But the wounded man felt instinctively that it was not the effect of his physical condition, and a sense of shame came suddenly over him, which was not dissipated by his superior’s words.  For, motioning the others aside, the major-general leaned over his cot, and said,—­

“Until a few moments ago, the report was that you had been captured in the first rush of the rear-guard which we were rolling up for your attack, and when you were picked up, just now, in plain clothes on the slope, you were not recognized.  The one thing seemed to be as improbable as the other,” he added significantly.

The miserable truth flashed across Brant’s mind.  Hooker must have been captured in his clothes—­perhaps in some extravagant sally—­and had not been recognized in the confusion by his own officers.  Nevertheless, he raised his eyes to his superior.

“You got my note?”

The general’s brow darkened.

“Yes,” he said slowly, “but finding you thus unprepared—­I had been thinking just now that you had been deceived by that woman—­or by others—­and that it was a clumsy forgery.”  He stopped, and seeing the hopeless bewilderment in the face of the wounded man, added more kindly:  “But we will not talk of that in your present condition.  The doctor says a few hours will put you straight again.  Get strong, for I want you to lose no time—­for your own sake—­to report yourself at Washington.”

“Report myself—­at Washington!” repeated Brant slowly.

“That was last night’s order,” said the commander, with military curtness.  Then he burst out:  “I don’t understand it, Brant!  I believe you have been misunderstood, misrepresented, perhaps maligned and I shall make it my business to see the thing through—­but those are the Department orders.  And for the present—­I am sorry to say you are relieved of your command.”

He turned away, and Brant closed his eyes.  With them it seemed to him that he closed his career.  No one would ever understand his explanation—­even had he been tempted to give one, and he knew he never would.  Everything was over now!  Even this wretched bullet had not struck him fairly, and culminated his fate as it might!  For an instant, he recalled his wife’s last offer to fly with him beyond the seas—­beyond this cruel injustice—­but even as he recalled it, he knew that flight meant the worst of all—­a half-confession!  But she had escaped!  Thank God for that!  Again and again in his hopeless perplexity this comfort