with a tenderness that would blot out their past in their separate memories—­God knows! it might even be that a parting at that moment was a joining of them in eternity.  In his momentary exaltation it even struck him that it was a duty, no less sacred, no less unselfish than the one to which he had devoted his life.  The light was growing stronger; he could hear voices in the nearest picket line, and the sound of a cough in the invading mist.  He made a hurried sign to the on-coming figure to follow him, ran ahead, and halted at last in the cover of a hackmatack bush.  Still gazing forward over the marsh, he stealthily held out his hand behind him as the rustling skirt came nearer.  At last his hand was touched—­but even at that touch he started and turned quickly.

It was not his wife, but Rose!—­her mulatto double!  Her face was rigid with fright, her beady eyes staring in their china sockets, her white teeth chattering.  Yet she would have spoken.

“Hush!” he said, clutching her hand, in a fierce whisper.  “Not a word!”

She was holding something white in her fingers; he snatched it quickly.  It was a note from his wife—­not in the disguised hand of her first warning, but in one that he remembered as if it were a voice from their past.

“Forgive me for disobeying you to save you from capture, disgrace, or death—­which would have come to you where you were going!  I have taken Rose’s pass.  You need not fear that your honor will suffer by it, for if I am stopped I shall confess that I took it from her.  Think no more of me, Clarence, but only of yourself.  You are in danger.”

He crushed the letter in his hand.

“Tell me,” he said in a fierce whisper, seizing her arm, “and speak low.  When did you leave her?”

“Sho’ly just now!” gasped the frightened woman.

He flung her aside.  There might be still time to overtake and save her before she reached the picket lines.  He ran up the gully, and out on to the slope towards the first guard-post.  But a familiar challenge reached his ear, and his heart stopped beating.

“Who goes there?”

There was a pause, a rattle of arms voices—­another pause—­and Brant stood breathlessly listening.  Then the voice rose again slowly and clearly:  “Pass the mulatto woman!”

Thank God! she was saved!  But the thought had scarcely crossed his mind before it seemed to him that a blinding crackle of sparks burst out along the whole slope below the wall, a characteristic yell which he knew too well rang in his ears, and an undulating line of dusty figures came leaping like gray wolves out of the mist upon his pickets.  He heard the shouts of his men falling back as they fired; the harsh commands of a few officers hurrying to their posts, and knew that he had been hopelessly surprised and surrounded!

He ran forward among his disorganized men.  To his consternation no one seemed to heed him!  Then the remembrance of his disguise flashed upon him.  But he had only time to throw away his hat and snatch a sword from a falling lieutenant, before a scorching flash seemed to pass before his eyes and burn through his hair, and he dropped like a log beside his subaltern.