"And so help you to win her. I cannot do her that wrong, my Lord." "Is it worse to tell her only the truth about me than to seek to persuade her into a marriage with a bankrupt?" "You state it unsparingly." "Not more so, I doubt not, than ye did the matter of my parole--which some day I shall be able to justify, and the gentlemen of the army will then sing a very altered tune-- with this difference, that I say it to your face and ye did not." With bowed head Sir Frederick answered: "You are right, my Lord, and I will say what I can in your favour to Miss Meredith." "Spoke like an honest man. Fare ye well till next Wednesday, when I shall look for ye to a three-o'clock dinner." Whatever pain and shame the words cost him, honourably the baronet fulfilled his promise by going to the commissary's quarters the following day and telling Janice the facts. The girl listened to his explanation with a face grave almost to sadness. "I--What you have told me, Sir Frederick," she said gently at the end, "is of much importance to me just at this time, and I thank you." "I know, I know," groaned the young officer, miserably, "and 't is only part of my horrible run of luck that I should--that--ah--Take him, Miss Meredith, and end my torture." "Can you advise me to marry Lord Clowes?" "After his generosity to me, in honour I must say nothing against him, but 't is asking too much of human nature for me to aid his suit." "I--oh, I know not what to do!" despairingly wailed the girl. "Mommy says 't is for me to decide, and dadda thinks I cannot do better, and to the ear it seems indeed the only thing to do. Yet I shudder every time I think of it, and twice, when I have dreamed that I was his wife, I have waked the whole house with my screams to be saved from him." "Miss Meredith," burst out the baronet, "give me the right to save you. You know I love you to desperation; that I would live to make you--" "Ah, pray, Sir Frederick," begged Janice, "do not add to my pain and difficulty. What you wish--" "I crave a pardon for my words. 'T was a moment's selfish forgetfulness of you and of my own position, that shall not occur again." Mobray stooped and kissed a loose end of the handkerchief the girl held, and hurried from the room. As he was catching up his cloak and sabre in the hallway, the door of the office opened. "Come in here a moment, Sir Frederick," requested the commissary. "I have done as I promised, and that is all I can do at the moment," almost sobbed the young fellow. "Nor will I dine here Wednesday, though you do your worst." "Tush! Do as ye please as to that, but come in here now, for I have a thing to say that concerns Miss Meredith's happiness." "And what is that?" demanded the baronet, as he entered. "I see by the G. O. that ye are named one of the commissioners to arrange a cartel of exchange with the rebels at Germantown to-day." "Would to God it were to arrange a battle in which I might fall!"