The person addressed rose from his seat, revealing clothes so soiled and tattered, and a pair of long boots of such shabby appearance, as to give him the semblance of some runaway prentice or bond-servant, but over his shoulder passed a green ribbon and sword sash which marked their wearer as a field officer; and as the baronet realised this he removed his hat and bowed.

“Since when did you take to calling your superior officers ‘fellows,’ Sir Frederick?” asked the other, laughing.

With a cry of recognition, Mobray sprang forward, his hand outstretched.  “Charlie!” he exclaimed.  “Heavens, man, we have made a joke in the army of the appearance of thy troops, but I never thought to see the exquisite of the Mall in clothes not fit for a tinker.”

“My name, Fred, is John Brereton,” corrected the officer, “which is a change for the better, I think you will own.  As for my clothes, I’ll better them, too, if Congress ever gives us enough pay to do more than keep life in us.  Owing to depreciation, a leftenant-colonel is allowed to starve at present on the equivalent of twenty-five dollars, specie, a month.”

“And yet you go on serving such masters,” burst out Mobray.  “Come over to us, Charl—­John.  Sir William would give you—­”

“Enough,” interrupted Brereton, angrily.  “For how long, Sir Frederick, have you deemed me capable of treachery?”

“’T is no treachery to leave this unnatural rebellion and take sides with our good king.”

“Such talk is idle, and you should know it, Mobray.  A word with you ere Grayson and Boudinot—­who have gone to look at that marplot house of Cliveden which frustrated all our hopes four months since—­return and interrupt us.  I last saw you at the Merediths’; can you give me word of them?”

“Only ill ones, alas!” answered the captain.  “Their necessities are such that I fear me they are on the point of giving their daughter to that unutterable scoundrel, Clowes.”

Jack started as if he had been stung.  “You cannot mean that, man!  We sent you word he had broke his parole.”

“Ay,” replied the baronet, flushing.  “And let me tell you, John, that scarce an officer failed to go to Sir William and beg him to send the cur back to you.”

“And you mean that Mr. Meredith can seriously intend to give Miss Janice to such a creature?”

“I fear ’t is as good as decided.  You know the man, and how he gets his way, curse him!”

“I’d do more than that, could I but get into Philadelphia,” declared Jack, hotly.  “By heavens, Fred—­”

But here the entrance of other officers interrupted them, and Colonel Brereton was set to introducing Boudinot and Grayson to the British officer.

Scarcely had they been made known to each other when Mobray’s fellow-commissioners, Colonel O’Hara and Colonel Stevens, with a detail of dragoons, came trotting up; and so soon as credentials were exchanged the six sat down about a table in a private room to discuss the matter which had brought them together.  One of the first acts of Mobray was to ask for a look at the Continental lists of prisoners; and after a hurried glance through them, he turned and said to Brereton in a low voice:  “We had word in Philadelphia that Leftenant Hennion died of a fever.”