“Perhaps you would like to satisfy yourself, General,” said Colonel Lagrange, with an ironical laugh.  “Pray do not hesitate on account of our uniform.  Search us if you like.”

“Not on entering my lines, Colonel,” replied Brant, with quiet significance.

Lagrange’s cheek flushed.  But he recovered himself quickly, and with a formal bow said,—­

“You will, then, perhaps, let us know your pleasure?”

“My duty, Colonel, is to keep you both close prisoners here until I have an opportunity to forward you to the division commander, with a report of the circumstances of your arrest.  That I propose to do.  How soon I may have that opportunity, or if I am ever to have it,” continued Brant, fixing his clear eyes significantly on Lagrange, “depends upon the chances of war, which you probably understand as well as I do.”

“We should never think of making any calculation on the action of an officer of such infinite resources as General Brant,” said Lagrange ironically.

“You will, no doubt, have an opportunity of stating your own case to the division commander,” continued Brant, with an unmoved face.  “And,” he continued, turning for the first time to Captain Faulkner, “when you tell the commander what I believe to be the fact—­from your name and resemblance—­that you are a relation of the young lady who for the last three weeks has been an inmate of this house under a pass from Washington, you will, I have no doubt, favorably explain your own propinquity to my lines.”

“My sister Tilly!” said the young officer impulsively.  “But she is no longer here.  She passed through the lines back to Washington yesterday.  No,” he added, with a light laugh, “I’m afraid that excuse won’t count for to-day.”

A sudden frown upon the face of the elder officer, added to the perfect ingenuousness of Faulkner’s speech, satisfied Brant that he had not only elicited the truth, but that Miss Faulkner had been successful.  But he was sincere in his suggestion that her relationship to the young officer would incline the division commander to look leniently upon his fault, for he was conscious of a singular satisfaction in thus being able to serve her.  Of the real object of the two men before him he had no doubt.  They were “the friends” of his wife, who were waiting for her outside the lines!  Chance alone had saved her from being arrested with them, with the consequent exposure of her treachery before his own men, who, as yet, had no proof of her guilt, nor any suspicion of her actual identity.  Meanwhile his own chance of conveying her with safety beyond his lines was not affected by the incident; the prisoners dare not reveal what they knew of her, and it was with a grim triumph that he thought of compassing her escape without their aid.  Nothing of this, however, was visible in his face, which the younger man watched with a kind of boyish curiosity, while Colonel Lagrange regarded the ceiling with a politely repressed yawn.  “I regret,” concluded Brant, as he summoned the officer of the guard, “that I shall have to deprive you of each other’s company during the time you are here; but I shall see that you, separately, want for nothing in your confinement.”