“Be gone?  Where?”

“Back to camp, of course, to give warning of this expedition.”

“’Tis impossible!  Tis hours—­”

“’Tis not impossible—­I will outride them.  They wouldn’t have started before dark.”

“You would only overtake them, at your best.  Do you think they would let you pass?”

“Poh!  I know every road.  I can ride around them.  I’ll put the army in readiness for ’em, treason or no treason!  For the present, good-bye—­”

The look in his face—­of power and resolution—­gave her a sudden sense of her triumph slipping out of her grasp.

“You must not go!” she cried, quite awakened to the peril of the situation to her enterprise.

“I must!  Good-bye!  One kiss, I beg!”

“But you sha’n’t go!” As he came close to her, she clasped him tightly with both arms.  She made no attempt to avoid his kiss, and he, taking this for acquiescence, bestowed the kiss upon unresponsive lips.

“Now let me go,” said he, turning to stride toward the door by which he had entered from the rear chamber.

“No, no!  Stay.  Time to win back my love, you said.  Take the time now.  You may find me not so difficult of winning back.  Nay, I have never ceased to love you, at the bottom of my heart.  I love you now.  You shall stay.”

“I must not, I dare not.  Oh, I would to God I could believe you!  But whether ’tis true, or a device to keep me here, I will not stay.  Let me go!”

“I will not!  You will have to force me from you, first!  I tell you I love you—­my husband!”

“If you love me, you will let me go.”

“If you love me, you will stay.”

“Not a moment—­though God knows how I love you!  I will come to see you soon again.”

“If you go now, I will never let you see me again!—­Nay, you must drag me after you, then!”

He was moving toward the door despite her hold; and now he caught her wrists to force open the clasp in which she held him.

“Oh! you are crushing my arms!” she cried.

“Ay, the beautiful, dear arms—­God bless them!  But let me go, then!”

“I won’t!  You will have to kill me, first!  You shall not spoil my scheme!”

“Yours!”

“Yes, mine!  Mine, against your commander, against your cause!” She was wrought up now to a fury, at the physical force he exerted to release himself; and for the time, swayed by her feelings only, she let policy fly to the winds.  “Your cause that I hate, because it ruined my hopes before!  You are a fool if you think my being your wife would have kept me from fighting your hateful cause.  I became your wife that I might go to England, and when that failed I was yours no longer.  Love another?  Yes!—­and you shall not spoil his work and mine—­not unless you kill me!”

For a moment his mental anguish, his overwhelming shame for her, unnerved him, and he stared at her with a ghastly face, relaxing his pressure for freedom.  But this weakness was followed by a fierce reaction.  His countenance darkened, and with one effort, the first into which he had put his real strength, he tore her arms from him.  White-faced and breathing fast, with rage and fear of defeat, she ran to a front window, and flung it open.