“You surely didn’t ask Jim to bring me here,” he said smilingly, “to tell me that Mrs. Peyton”—­he corrected himself hastily as a malicious sparkle came into Susy’s blue eyes—­“that my wife was a Southern woman, and probably sympathized with her class?  Well, I don’t know that I should blame her for that any more than she should blame me for being a Northern man and a Unionist.”

“And she doesn’t blame you?” asked Susy sneeringly.

The color came slightly to Clarence’s cheek, but before he could reply the actress added,—­

“No, she prefers to use you!”

“I don’t think I understand you,” said Clarence, rising coldly.

“No, you don’t understand her!” retorted Susy sharply.  “Look here, Clarence Brant, you’re right; I didn’t ask you here to tell you—­what you and everybody knows—­that your wife is a Southerner.  I didn’t ask you here to tell you what everybody suspects—­that she turns you round her little finger.  But I did ask you here to tell you what nobody, not even you, suspects—­but what I know!—­and that is that she’s a traitor—­and more, a spy!—­and that I’ve only got to say the word, or send that man Jim to say the word, to have her dragged out of her Copperhead den at Robles Ranche and shut up in Fort Alcatraz this very night!”

Still with the pink glowing in her rounding cheek, and eyes snapping like splintered sapphires, she rose to her feet, with her pretty shoulders lifted, her small hands and white teeth both tightly clenched, and took a step towards him.  Even in her attitude there was a reminiscence of her willful childhood, although still blended with the provincial actress whom he had seen on the stage only an hour ago.  Thoroughly alarmed at her threat, in his efforts to conceal his feelings he was not above a weak retaliation.  Stepping back, he affected to regard her with a critical admiration that was only half simulated, and said with a smile,—­

“Very well done—­but you have forgotten the flag.”

She did not flinch.  Rather accepting the sarcasm as a tribute to her art, she went on with increasing exaggeration:  “No, it is you who have forgotten the flag—­forgotten your country, your people, your manhood—­everything for that high-toned, double-dyed old spy and traitress!  For while you are standing here, your wife is gathering under her roof at Robles a gang of spies and traitors like herself—­secession leaders and their bloated, drunken ‘chivalry’!  Yes, you may smile your superior smile, but I tell you, Clarence Brant, that with all your smartness and book learning you know no more of what goes on around you than a child.  But others do!  This conspiracy is known to the government, the Federal officers have been warned; General Sumner has been sent out here—­and his first act was to change the command at Fort Alcatraz, and send your wife’s Southern friend—­Captain Pinckney—­to the right about!  Yes—­everything is known but one thing, and that is where and how this precious crew meet!  That I alone know, and that I’ve told you!”