So intent had I been upon this adventure, my mind concentrated on details, that the personal equation had been entirely forgotten.  But now I began to reflect along that line, yet never for a moment forgetting our situation, or its peril.  I was going down into the neighborhood where Willifred Hardy lived—­to which she had probably already returned.  I was going as an enemy to her cause, guided by an ex-slave of Le Gaire’s.  It was rather an odd turn of Fate’s wheel, and, while there was no probability of our meeting, yet the conditions were suggestive.  My eyes were upon the dim form in advance, and I was strongly tempted to ask if he knew where Major Hardy’s plantation was.  Beyond doubt he did, but this was no time for dalliance with love, and I drove the temptation sternly from me, endeavoring to concentrate my mind on present duty.  But in spite of all Billie would intervene, her blue-gray eyes challenging me to forget, and the remembrance of her making my step light.  I was going to be near her again, at least, if only for an hour; perhaps, whether I succeeded or failed, she would hear my name mentioned.  Even that would be better than forgetfulness, and she was one to appreciate a deed like this.  I should like to see her eyes when they told her—­when they spoke my name.  I wondered where Captain Le Gaire was, and whether he had been her escort back through the Confederate lines.  Most probably yes, and perhaps he had remained at the Hardy house, still incapacitated from duty by the blow I had struck him—­an interesting invalid.  Even this thought did not trouble me as it might have done otherwise, for I believed Billie had already begun to see the real man behind the fellow’s handsome face; if so, then time and companionship would only widen the breach between them—­perhaps my memory also.

It was a hard three hours’ travel, practically feeling a passage through the darkness, for the narrow path extended but little beyond a mile, after losing which we stumbled forward through a maze of rock and underbrush.  This finally became so dense that the negro veered to the left, where there was a grassy ledge, along which we made more rapid progress, although facing greater danger of discovery.  However, the night was black, and to any picket looking down from above the ravine must have appeared a dark, impenetrable void, while our feet in the grass scarcely made a sound.  Once we saw a moving figure above us, barely visible against the sky-line, and halted breathlessly, every eye uplifted, until the apparition vanished; and once, warned by the cracking of a twig, we lay flat on our faces while a spectral company went past us on foot, heading at right-angles across our path.  I counted twenty men in the party, but could distinguish nothing as to uniform or equipment.  We waited motionless until the last straggler had disappeared.  By this time we were well behind the Confederate lines, with troops probably on either side, for this gash in the surface had both narrowed and veered sharply to the east.  It still remained sufficiently deep to conceal our movements, and, as we had circled the picket lines, we could proceed with greater confidence.  We were beyond the vigilance of sentinels, and could be discovered now only through some accidental encounter.  I touched Le Gaire on the shoulder, and whispered in his ear: