“Nothing at all.  I spoke without thinking.”

“The likelier to have spoken true, then!  So your—­acquaintance—­might be found in our camp to-night?  Charles Falconer, a British officer.  I can’t imagine—­not as a spy, surely.  Oho! is there some expedition?  Some attack, some midnight surprise?  This requires looking into.”

“I fear you will not find out much.  And if you did, it would be too late for you to carry a warning.”

“The expedition has too great a start of me—­is that what you mean?  That’s to be seen.  I might beat Mr. Falconer in this, as he has beaten me—­elsewhere.  I know the Jersey roads better than I have known my wife’s heart, perchance.  What is this expedition?”

“Do you think I would tell you—­if there were one?”

“I’m satisfied there is some such thing.  But I doubt no warning of mine is needed, to defeat it.  Our army is alert for these night attempts.  We’ve had too many of ’em.  If there be one afoot to-night, so much the worse for those engaged in it.”

This irritated her; and she never used the skill to guard her speech, at her calmest; so she answered quickly: 

“Not if it’s helped by traitors in your camp!”

“What?—­But how should you, a woman, know of such a matter?”

“You’ll see, when the honours are distributed.”

“This is very strange.  You are in this officer’s confidence, perhaps.  He is unwise to trust you so far—­you have told me enough to—­”

“There’s no more need of secrecy.  Captain Falconer’s men are well on their way to Morristown.  Even if you got out of our lines as easily as you got in, you could only meet our troops returning with your general.”

Doubtless she conceived that by taunting him, at this safe hour, with this prevision of her success, she helped the estrangement which she felt necessary to her enjoyment of her expected rewards.

“Oho!” quoth he, with a bitter, derisive laugh.  “Another attempt to seize Washington!  What folly!”

“Not when we are helped by treason in your camp, as I said before.  Folly, is it?  You’ll sing another song to-morrow!”

She smiled with anticipated triumph, and the smile had in it so much of the Madge of other days, that his bitterness forsook him, and admiration and love returned to sharpen his grief.

“Oh, Madge, dear, could I but win you back!” he murmured, wistfully.

“What, in that strain again!” she said, petulant at each revival of the self-reproach his sorrow caused in her.

“Ay, if I had but the chance!  If I might be with you long enough, if I might reawaken the old tenderness!—­But I forget; treason in our camp, you say.  There is danger, then—­ay, there’s always the possibility.  The devil’s in it, that I must tear myself from you now; that I must part with you while matters are so wrong between us; that I must leave you when I would give ten years of life for one hour to win your love back!  But you will take my hand, let me kiss you once—­you will do that for the sake of the old times—­and then I will be gone!”