In another instant bugles were ringing through the camp, with the hurrying hoofs of mounted officers and the trampling of forming men. The house itself was almost deserted. Although the single cannon-shot had been enough to show that it was no mere skirmishing of pickets, Brant still did not believe in any serious attack of the enemy. His position, as in the previous engagement, had no strategic importance to them; they were no doubt only making a feint against it to conceal some advance upon the centre of the army two miles away. Satisfied that he was in easy supporting distance of his division commander, he extended his line along the ridge, ready to fall back in that direction, while retarding their advance and masking the position of his own chief. He gave a few orders necessary to the probable abandonment of the house, and then returned to it. Shot and shell were already dropping in the field below. A thin ridge of blue haze showed the line of skirmish fire.
A small conical, white cloud, like a bursting cotton-pod, revealed an open battery in the willow-fringed meadow. Yet the pastoral peacefulness of the house was unchanged. The afternoon sun lay softly on its deep verandas; the pot pourri incense of fallen rose-leaves haunted it still.
He entered his room through the French window on the veranda, when the door leading from the passage was suddenly flung open, and Miss Faulkner swept quickly inside, closed the door behind her, and leaned back against it, panting and breathless.
Clarence was startled, and for a moment ashamed. He had suddenly realized that in the excitement he had entirely forgotten her and the dangers to which she might be exposed. She had probably heard the firing, her womanly fears had been awakened; she had come to him for protection. But as he turned towards her with a reassuring smile, he was shocked to see that her agitation and pallor were far beyond any physical cause. She motioned him desperately to shut the window by which he had entered, and said, with white lips,--"I must speak with you alone!"
"Certainly. But there is no immediate danger to you even here--and I can soon put you beyond the reach of any possible harm."
"Harm--to me! God! if it were only that!"
He stared at her uneasily.
"Listen," she said gaspingly, "listen to me! Then hate, despise me--kill me if you will. For you are betrayed and ruined--cut off and surrounded! It has been helped on by me, but I swear to you the blow did not come from MY hand. I would have saved you. God only knows how it happened--it was Fate!"
In an instant Brant saw the whole truth instinctively and clearly.
But with the revelation came the usual calmness and perfect self-possession which never yet had failed him in any emergency. With the sound of the increasing cannonade and its shifting position made clearer to his ears, the view of his whole threatened position spread out like a map before his eyes, the swift calculation of the time his men could hold the ridge in his mind--even a hurried estimate of the precious moments he could give to the wretched woman before him--he even then, gravely and gently, led her to a chair and said in a calm voice,--"That is not enough! Speak slowly, plainly. I must know everything. How and in what way have you betrayed me?"
She looked at him imploringly--reassured, yet awed by his gentleness.
"You won't believe me; you cannot believe me! for I do not even know. I have taken and exchanged letters--whose contents I never saw--between the Confederates and a spy who comes to this house, but who is far away by this time. I did it because I thought you hated and despised me because I thought it was my duty to help my cause--because you said it was 'war' between us--but I never spied on you. I swear it."
"Then how do you know of this attack?" he said calmly.
She brightened, half timidly, half hopefully.
"There is a window in the wing of this house that overlooks the slope near the Confederate lines. There was a signal placed in it--not by me--but I know it meant that as long as it was there the plot, whatever it was, was not ripe, and that no attack would be made on you as long as it was visible. That much I know,--that much the spy had to tell me, for we both had to guard that room in turns. I wanted to keep this dreadful thing off--until"--her voice trembled, "until," she added hurriedly, seeing his calm eyes were reading her very soul, "until I went away--and for that purpose I withheld some of the letters that were given me. But this morning, while I was away from the house, I looked back and saw that the signal was no longer there. Some one had changed it. I ran back, but I was too late--God help me!--as you see."
The truth flashed upon Brant. It was his own hand that had precipitated the attack. But a larger truth came to him now, like a dazzling inspiration. If he had thus precipitated the attack before they were ready, there was a chance that it was imperfect, and there was still hope. But there was no trace of this visible in his face as he fixed his eyes calmly on hers, although his pulses were halting in expectancy as he said--"Then the spy had suspected you, and changed it."
"Oh, no," she said eagerly, "for the spy was with me and was frightened too. We both ran back together--you remember--she was stopped by the patrol!"
She checked herself suddenly, but too late. Her cheeks blazed, her head sank, with the foolish identification of the spy into which her eagerness had betrayed her.
But Brant appeared not to notice it. He was, in fact, puzzling his brain to conceive what information the stupid mulatto woman could have obtained here. His strength, his position was no secret to the enemy--there was nothing to gain from him. She must have been, like the trembling, eager woman before him, a mere tool of others.
"Did this woman live here?" he said.
"No," she said. "She lived with the Manlys, but had friends whom she visited at your general's headquarters."
With difficulty Brant suppressed a start. It was clear to him now.
