Nevertheless, so complete was his control of voice and manner that, as he rode on to his quarters, no one would have dreamed that General Brant had just looked upon the likeness of the wife from whom he had parted in anger four years ago.  Still less would they have suspected the strange fear that came upon him that in some way she was connected with the treachery he had just discovered.  He had heard from her only once, and then through her late husband’s lawyer, in regard to her Californian property, and believed that she had gone to her relations in Alabama, where she had identified herself with the Southern cause, even to the sacrifice of her private fortune.  He had heard her name mentioned in the Southern press as a fascinating society leader, and even coadjutrix of Southern politicians,—­but he had no reason to believe that she had taken so active or so desperate a part in the struggle.  He tried to think that his uneasiness sprang from his recollection of the previous treachery of Captain Pinckney, and the part that she had played in the Californian conspiracy, although he had long since acquitted her of the betrayal of any nearer trust.  But there was a fateful similarity in the two cases.  There was no doubt that this Lieutenant Wainwright was a traitor in the camp,—­that he had succumbed to the usual sophistry of his class in regard to his superior allegiance to his native State.  But was there the inducement of another emotion, or was the photograph only the souvenir of a fascinating priestess of rebellion, whom the dead man had met?  There was perhaps less of feeling than scorn in the first suggestion, but he was nevertheless relieved when the provost marshal found no other incriminating papers in Wainwright’s effects.  Nor did he reveal to the division general the finding of the photograph.  It was sufficient to disclose the work of the traitor without adding what might be a clue to his wife’s participation in it, near or remote.  There was risk enough in the former course,—­which his duty made imperative.  He hardly dared to think of the past day’s slaughter, which—­there was no doubt now—­had been due to the previous work of the spy, and how his brigade had been selected—­by the irony of Fate—­to suffer for and yet retrieve it.  If she had had a hand in this wicked plot, ought he to spare her?  Or was his destiny and hers to be thus monstrously linked together?

Luckily, however, the expiation of the chief offender and the timely discovery of his papers enabled the division commander to keep the affair discreetly silent, and to enjoin equal secrecy on the part of Brant.  The latter, however, did not relax his vigilance, and after the advance the next day he made a minute inspection of the ground he was to occupy, its approaches and connections with the outlying country, and the rebel lines; increased the stringency of picket and sentry regulations, and exercised a rigid surveillance of non-combatants and civilians within the lines, even to the lowest canteener or camp follower.  Then he turned his attention to the house he was to occupy as his headquarters.