“As you please.”  No more words passed.  They moved up Pennsylvania Avenue, now at mid-day crowded with officers, soldiers, and clerks going to lunch.  Grey was courteously saluting the officers he passed.  This particularly enraged the man who was following him and was hopelessly trying to see how with regard to his own honour he could save this easy-going and well-loved brother of Ann Penhallow.  If the Confederate had made his escape, he would have been relieved, but he gave him no least chance, nor was Grey at all meaning to take any risks.  He knew or believed that his captor could not give him up to justice.  He had never much liked the steady, self-controlled business man, the master of Grey Pine.  Himself a light-hearted, thoughtless character, he quite failed to comprehend the agony of indecision which was harassing the federal officer.  In fact, then and later in their talk, he found something amusing in the personal embarrassment Penhallow’s recognition had brought upon him.

As they approached the hotel, the Confederate had become certain that he was in no kind of danger.  The trapper less at ease than the trapped was after his habit becoming cool, competent and intensely watchful.  The one man was more and more his careless, rather egotistic self; the other was of a sudden the rare self of an hour of peril—­in a word, dangerous.  As they reached the second floor, Penhallow said, “This way.”  Josiah in the dimly lighted corridor was putting the last shine on a pair of riding-boots.  As he rose, his master said, “Stay here—­I am not at home—­to anybody—­to any one.”

He led the way into his sitting-room; Grey following said, “Excuse me,” as he locked the door.

“You are quite safe,” remarked his host, rather annoyed.

“Oh, that I take for granted.”

James Penhallow said, “Sit down.  There are cigars.”

“A match please.  Cigars are rare luxuries with us.”

As the Confederate waited for the sulphur of the match to pass away, Penhallow took note of the slight, delicate figure, the blue eyes like Ann’s, the well-bred face.  Filling his own pipe he sat down with his back to the window, facing his brother-in-law.

“You are very comfortable here, James.  How is my sister, and your beauty, Leila?”

“Well—­very well.  But let us talk a little.  You are a spy in our uniform.”

“That is obvious enough.  I am one of many in your Departments and outside of them.  What do you propose?  I am sorry we met.”

“My duty is to turn you over to the Provost-marshal.”

“Of course, but alas! my dear James, there is my sister—­you won’t do it—­no one would under the circumstances.  What the deuce made you speak to me?  You put us both in an awkward position.  You became responsible for a duty you can’t fulfil.  I am really most sorry for you.  It was a bit of bad luck.”

Penhallow rose to get a match and moved about the room uneasily as Henry Grey went on talking lightly of the situation which involved for him possibilities of death as a spy, and for Penhallow a dilemma in which Grey saw his own safety.