“’Twas all for nothing, then?” she said, with a quiet weariness which showed that her battle with disappointment had been fought and had left her tired out if not resigned.

“Yes,” said the captain, apparently relieved to discover that no storm of disappointment or reproach was to be undergone.  “They are too watchful.  We hadn’t yet come upon your brother, when a heavy fire broke out upon us.  We were lucky to escape before they could surround us.  Nine of our men are missing.”

She gave a shudder, then came to us, kissed Tom with more than ordinary tenderness, grasped my hand affectionately, and finally held the captain’s in a light, momentary clasp.

“You did your best, I’m sure,” she said, in a low voice, at the same time flashing her eyes furtively from one to another as if to detect whether we hid any part of the news.

We were relieved and charmed at this resigned manner of receiving our bad tidings, and it gave me, at least, a higher opinion of her strength of character.  This was partly merited, I make no doubt; though I did not know then that she had reason to reproach herself for our failure.

“And that’s all you have to tell?” she queried.  “You didn’t discover what made them so ready for a surprise?”

“No,” replied the captain, casually.  “Could there have been any particular reason, think you?  To my mind, they have had lessons enough to make them watchful.”

She looked relieved.  I suppose she was glad we should not know of her interview with Philip, and of the imprudent taunts by which she herself had betrayed the great design.

“Well,” said she.  “They may not be so watchful another time.  We may try again.  Let us wait until I hear from Ned.”

But when she stole an interview with Bill Meadows, that worthy had no communication from Ned; instead thereof, he had news that Captain Faringfield had disappeared from the rebel camp, and was supposed by some to have deserted to the British.  Something that Meadows knew not at the time, nor I till long after, was of the treasonable plot unearthed in the rebel army, and that two or three of the participants had been punished for the sake of example, and the less guilty ones drummed out of the camp.  This was the result of Philip’s presentation to General Washington of the list of names obtained from Ned, some of the men named therein having confessed upon interrogation.  Philip’s account of the affair made it appear to Washington that his discovery was due to his accidental meeting with Ned Faringfield, and that Faringfield’s escape was but the unavoidable outcome of the hand-to-hand fight between the two men—­for Philip had meanwhile ascertained, by a personal search, that Ned had not been too severely hurt to make good his flight.