A few hours later he was ushered through the public rooms of the White House to a more secluded part of the household.  The messenger stopped before a modest door and knocked.  It was opened by a tall figure—­the President himself.  He reached out a long arm to Brant, who stood hesitatingly on the threshold, grasped his hand, and led him into the room.  It had a single, large, elaborately draped window and a handsome medallioned carpet, which contrasted with the otherwise almost appalling simplicity of the furniture.  A single plain angular desk, with a blotting pad and a few sheets of large foolscap upon it, a waste-paper basket and four plain armchairs, completed the interior with a contrast as simple and homely as its long-limbed, black-coated occupant.  Releasing the hand of the general to shut a door which opened into another apartment, the President shoved an armchair towards him and sank somewhat wearily into another before the desk.  But only for a moment; the long shambling limbs did not seem to adjust themselves easily to the chair; the high narrow shoulders drooped to find a more comfortable lounging attitude, shifted from side to side, and the long legs moved dispersedly.  Yet the face that was turned towards Brant was humorous and tranquil.

“I was told I should have to send for you if I wished to see you,” he said smilingly.

Already mollified, and perhaps again falling under the previous influence of this singular man, Brant began somewhat hesitatingly to explain.

But the President checked him gently,—­

“You don’t understand.  It was something new to my experience here to find an able-bodied American citizen with an honest genuine grievance who had to have it drawn from him like a decayed tooth.  But you have been here before.  I seem to remember your face.”

Brant’s reserve had gone.  He admitted that he had twice sought an audience—­but—­

“You dodged the dentist!  That was wrong.”  As Brant made a slight movement of deprecation the President continued:  “I understand!  Not from fear of giving pain to yourself but to others.  I don’t know that that is right, either.  A certain amount of pain must be suffered in this world—­even by one’s enemies.  Well, I have looked into your case, General Brant.”  He took up a piece of paper from his desk, scrawled with two or three notes in pencil.  “I think this is the way it stands.  You were commanding a position at Gray Oaks when information was received by the department that, either through neglect or complicity, spies were passing through your lines.  There was no attempt to prove your neglect; your orders, the facts of your personal care and precaution, were all before the department.  But it was also shown that your wife, from whom you were only temporarily separated, was a notorious secessionist; that, before the war, you yourself were suspected, and that, therefore, you were quite capable of evading your own orders, which you may have only given as a blind.  On this information you were relieved by the department of your command.  Later on it was discovered that the spy was none other than your own wife, disguised as a mulatto; that, after her arrest by your own soldiers, you connived at her escape—­and this was considered conclusive proof of—­well, let us say—­your treachery.”