But this interval of doubt was transitory.  The next day he received a dispatch from the War Department, ordering him to report himself for duty at once.  With a beating heart he hurried to the Secretary.  But that official had merely left a memorandum with his assistant directing General Brant to accompany some fresh levies to a camp of “organization” near the front.  Brant felt a chill of disappointment.  Duties of this kind had been left to dubious regular army veterans, hurriedly displaced general officers, and favored detrimentals.  But if it was not restoration, it was no longer inaction, and it was at least a release from Washington.

It was also evidently the result of some influence—­but hardly that of the Boompointers, for he knew that Susy wished to keep him at the Capital.  Was there another power at work to send him away from Washington?  His previous doubts returned.  Nor were they dissipated when the chief of the bureau placed a letter before him with the remark that it had been entrusted to him by a lady with the request that it should be delivered only into his own hands.

“She did not know your hotel address, but ascertained you were to call here.  She said it was of some importance.  There is no mystery about it, General,” continued the official with a mischievous glance at Brant’s handsome, perplexed face, “although it’s from a very pretty woman—­whom we all know.”

“Mrs. Boompointer?” suggested Brant, with affected lightness.

It was a maladroit speech.  The official’s face darkened.

“We have not yet become a Postal Department for the Boompointers, General,” he said dryly, “however great their influence elsewhere.  It was from rather a different style of woman—­Miss Faulkner.  You will receive your papers later at your hotel, and leave to-night.”

Brant’s unlucky slip was still potent enough to divert the official attention, or he would have noticed the change in his visitor’s face, and the abruptness of his departure.

Once in the street, Brant tore off the envelope.  But beneath it was another, on which was written in a delicate, refined hand:  “Please do not open this until you reach your destination.”

Then she knew he was going!  And perhaps this was her influence?  All his suspicions again returned.  She knew he was going near the lines, and his very appointment, through her power, might be a plot to serve her and the enemy!  Was this letter, which she was entrusting to him, the cover of some missive to her Southern friends which she expected him to carry—­perhaps as a return for her own act of self-sacrifice?  Was this the appeal she had been making to his chivalry, his gratitude, his honor?  The perspiration stood in beads on his forehead.  What defect lay hidden in his nature that seemed to make him an easy victim of these intriguing women?  He had not even the excuse of gallantry; less susceptible to the potencies of the sex than most men, he was still