“You would cancel my permission with your own sober second thought, my dear Captain. That second thought will tell you that there must be no hint, no word or whisper that could remotely point toward your purpose. Further, you must go back to Pettus, smooth over as best you can your visit to me here, and lull his curiosity, if he have any. Then, if you can not tell him point-blank the lie about your returning northward to-night, wait until he is asleep, and make your escape as you can.” We went somewhat beyond this, but not far; Hamilton telling me of his sergeant’s present besetment, and of how all his plans had come to naught. When I had it all he went with me to the door and I was out of the ante-room when he took leave of me and bade me God-speed; out under the stars and with only the half-mile walk between me and Jack Pettus for the cooking up of all these raw conditions thus thrust masterfully upon me. I saw well enough what I must face; how, when I should turn up missing, Seytoun would lose no time and spare no pains in black-listing me from one end of the army to the other. Yet if I could go quickly and return alive, dragging our Judas with me as the result of the endeavor ... well, then Seytoun would still say that I had deliberately provoked a quarrel which I knew I could not carry out to the gentlemanly conclusion. It was the cursedest dilemma, no matter how I twisted and turned it about. And to cap the pyramid of misery, there was a lurking fear that Mistress Beatrix Leigh might come to hear some garbled misversion of it, even in far-away Virginia, and would not know or guess the truth. Up to the very present moment, Seytoun owed his immunity solely to her, or rather to a promise I had made her the year before when I came out of the home militia to join Colonel Baylor’s new levies. When she should know the provocation, she might generously forgive the duel, though she had exacted the promise that I would not fight him; but would any explanation ever suffice to gloze over the fact that I had struck the man, and afterward had run away to escape the consequences?--for this is how the story would shape itself in Seytoun’s telling of it. I saw no loophole of escape, no light on the dark horizon, save at one uncertain point. Seytoun was brave enough on the battle-field; all men said that for him. Yet he was a truculent bully, and bullies are often weak-kneed where the colder kind of courage is required. What if he had pocketed my affront?--had failed to send his friend to Jack Pettus? The slender chance of such a happy outcome sent me on the faster toward the legion cantonments; and when I saw the scattering of tents and log shelters looming in the starlight I fell to running.