At Camden the Wateree becomes the Catawba, and happiness becomes memory or anticipation, according as you gaze up or down the stream. For there, in a tiny parlor in a white frame house looking on a poplar wood, I parted from Constantia, and left her with the friends who were to see her as far as Rocky Mount on her homeward journey. I fear that they were rebels. But there are things which it is wise to leave _sub silentio_; the dog that has found a bone does not bark. And my position was delicate. I felt that position grow more delicate in proportion as, with my face turned towards Winnsboro’, I approached the camp. I was not sad; the future held that which would make amends for present evils. But I knew that I had an unpleasant passage before me, and my conscience was not quite clear. At any rate I had misgivings, and taking care to reach the camp at sunset, and as the guard was changing, I made my way to Paton’s quarters without beat of drum. I was lucky enough to find him before the Provost-Marshal found me. He shook with laughter when he saw me. “Upon my honor, Major,” he said. “We are all vastly obliged to you! You are a whole company of players in yourself. As the hero-errant who relieves the Distressed Damsel and releases the Beleaguered Knight you fill the stage. The camp is agog with you. The latest about you is that the rebels have hung you from the roof of a remote house in the marshes. And, lo, we are all lamenting you, when in you walk as coolly as if the Dragon at Headquarters, robbed of his prey, were not breathing Court Martials and Firing Parties and the worst threats against you.” “I had nothing to do with it,” I said stoutly. “Innocent!” “That is what I am.” “Well, you will have to persuade my lord of it,” he retorted. “And you’ll find your work prepared for you! Francis Rawdon-Hastings is in no mean rage, my lad. The sooner you placate him the better. I hope the lady has come to give evidence for you?” I pooh-poohed this, but I took his hint and I went straight to Headquarters, leaving him mightily amused. There, the storm was not slow to break over me. My conduct was disgraceful, contumacious, subversive of all discipline, flat mutiny. I had taken advantage of my position and his lordship’s friendship, and the rest. I had collogued with convicted rebels, I had wandered over the country with suspected persons. I should be tried by Court Martial, I should find, whoever I was, that I could not do these things with impunity! D—d if I could! When I could be heard—and Webster, generally kind and easy-going, was almost as bad as the Irishman, “But, my lord,” I said, “What had I to do with the escape? It was not I who permitted the lady to visit her father?” That hit them between wind and water. They stared. “Then it was she?” my lord exclaimed.