“She’s promised—­” began the squire, but once again the suitor cut him off.

“She herself told me she is pledged to no one but me.”

“Nay, I’ve passed my word to Leftenant Hennion.”

“Chut!  A subaltern who’ll bless his stars if he ever is allowed to starve on a captain’s pay.  Thou canst not really mean to do thy daughter such an injury?”

My word is passed; and Lambert Meredith breaks not that.  The lad ’s a good boy, too, who’ll make her a good husband, with a fine estate, if peace ever comes again in the land.”

The officer thrummed a moment on the table.  “Then ’t is only thy word to this fellow, and no want of friendliness that leads thee to give me nay?” he asked.

“Of that ye may be sure,” assented Mr. Meredith, eagerly availing himself of the easy escape from the quandary that his host made for him.

“And but for the promise ye’d give her to me?”

The father hesitated and swallowed before he made reply, and when the words came, it was with an observable reluctance that he said:  “Ye should know that.”

“That is all I ask,” cried the commissary.  “I knew ye were not the man to eat another’s bread and not do what ye could for him.  We’ll not hope for harm to the lad, but if the camp fever or small-pox or aught else should come to him, I’ll remind ye of the promise ye’ve just spoken, sure that the man who won’t break his word to one won’t to t’ other.”

“That ye may tie to,” acceded Mr. Meredith, though with a dubious manner, as if something perplexed him.  And in his own room that evening he paused for a moment after removing his wig and remarked to himself:  “Promise I suppose I did, though I ne’er intended it.  Well, let ’s hope that Phil gets her; and if some miscarriage prevents, ’t is something that she should be made great and rich, though I wish the money had come in some more honest way to a more honest man.”

As for the commissary, once retired to his own room, he wrote a letter which he superscribed “To David Sproat, Deputy Commissary of Prisoners at New York.”  But this done, he tore it up, and tossed the fragments into the fire, with the remark:  “Why should I put my name to it, when Loring or Cunningham can give the order just as well?  I’ll see one or t’ other to-morrow, and so prevent all chance of its being traced to me.”  Then he sat looking for a time at the embers reflectively. “’T is folly to want her,” he said finally, as he rose and began the removal of his coat, “now that ye need not her money; but she’s enough to tempt any man with blood in his veins, and I can afford the whim.  Keep that blood in check, however, till ye have her fast; and do not frighten her as ye have done.  To think of Lord Clowes, cool enough to match any man, losing his head over a whiffling bit of woman-flesh!  What devil’s baits they are!”