“If this is with a view to separate interrogatory, general, I can retire now,” said Lagrange, rising, with ironical politeness.

“I believe I have all the information I require,” returned Brant, with undisturbed composure.  Giving the necessary orders to his subaltern, he acknowledged with equal calm the formal salutes of the two prisoners as they were led away, and returned quickly to his bedroom above.  He paused instinctively for a moment before the closed door, and listened.  There was no sound from within.  He unlocked the door, and opened it.

So quiet was the interior that for an instant, without glancing at the bed, he cast a quick look at the window, which, till then, he had forgotten, and which he remembered gave upon the veranda roof.  But it was still closed, and as he approached the bed, he saw his wife still lying there, in the attitude in which he had left her.  But her eyes were ringed, and slightly filmed, as if with recent tears.

It was perhaps this circumstance that softened his voice, still harsh with command, as he said,—­

“I suppose you knew those two men?”

“Yes.”

“And that I have put it out of their power to help you?”

“I do.”

There was something so strangely submissive in her voice that he again looked suspiciously at her.  But he was shocked to see that she was quite pale now, and that the fire had gone out of her dark eyes.

“Then I may tell you what is my plan to save you.  But, first, you must find this mulatto woman who has acted as your double.”

“She is here.”

“Here?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know it?” he asked, in quick suspicion.

“She was not to leave this place until she knew I was safe within our lines.  I have some friends who are faithful to me.”  After a pause she added, “She has been here already.”

He looked at her, startled.  “Impossible—­I”—­

“You locked the door.  Yes! but she has a second key.  And even if she had not, there is another entrance from that closet.  You do not know this house:  you have been here two weeks; I spent two years of my life, as a girl, in this room.”

An indescribable sensation came over him; he remembered how he had felt when he first occupied it; this was followed by a keen sense of shame on reflecting that he had been, ever since, but a helpless puppet in the power of his enemies, and that she could have escaped if she would, even now.

“Perhaps,” he said grimly, “you have already arranged your plans?”

She looked at him with a singular reproachfulness even in her submission.

“I have only told her to be ready to change clothes with me and help me color my face and hands at the time appointed.  I have left the rest to you.”

“Then this is my plan.  I have changed only a detail.  You and she must both leave this house at the same time, by different exits, but one of them must be private—­and unknown to my men.  Do you know of such a one?”