Ned’s clothes were briar-torn and mud-spattered; his face was haggard, his hair unkempt, his left shoulder humped up and held stiff.  He stopped near the door, and stared from face to face, frowning because of the sudden invasion of his eyes by the bright candlelight.  When his glance fell upon Margaret, it rested; and thereupon, just as if he were not returned from an absence of three years and more, and heedless of the rest of us, confining his address to her alone, he bellowed, with a most malignant expression of face and voice: 

“So you played a fine game with us, my lady—­luring us into the dirty scheme, and then turning around and setting your husband on us in the act!  I see through it all now, you underhanded, double-dealing slut!”

“Are you speaking to me, sir?” asked Margaret, with dignity.

“Of course I am; and don’t think I’ll hold my tongue because of these people.  Let ’em hear it all, I don’t care.  It’s all up now, and I’m a hanged man if ever I go near the American camp again.  But I’m safe here in New York, though I was damn’ near being shot when I first came into the British lines.  But I’ve been before General Knyphausen,[7] and been identified, and been acknowledged by your Captain Falconer as the man that worked your cursed plot at t’other end; and I’ve been let go free—­though I’m under watch, no doubt.  So you see there’s naught to hinder me exposing you for what you are—­the woman that mothered a British plot, and worked her trusting brother into it, and then betrayed him to her husband.”

“That’s a lie!” cried Margaret, crimson in the face.

“What does all this mean?” inquired Mr. Faringfield, rising.

Paying no attention to his father, Edward retorted upon Margaret, who also rose, and who stood between him and the rest of us: 

“A lie, is it?  Perhaps you can make General Knyphausen and Captain Falconer believe that, now I’ve told ’em whose cursed husband it was that attacked me at the meeting-place, and alarmed the camp.  You didn’t think I’d live to tell the tale, did you?  You thought to hear of my being hanged, and your husband promoted for his services, and so two birds killed with one stone!  But providence had a word to say about that.  The Lord is never on the side of plotters and traitors, let me tell you, and here I am to outface you.  A lie, is it?  A lie that your husband spoiled the scheme?  Why, you brazen hussy, he came from New York that very night—­he told me so himself!  He had seen you, and you had told him all, I’ll lay a thousand guineas!”

’Twas at the time a puzzle to me that Margaret should condescend to explanations with him as she forthwith did.  But I now see how, realising that proofs of Philip’s visit might turn up and seem to bear out Ned’s accusation, she must have felt the need of putting herself instantly right with Tom and me, lest she might eventually find herself wrong with General Clinton and Captain Falconer.