I can not tell how it ground me to have him talking thus of Beatrix, in the kindly familiarity of a friend--this man with whom, come what might, I meant to close in a death-grapple a few hours further on. It is said that all the world loves a lover, and surely this applies to that part of the world which is itself in the sweet toils. With all his hideous faults, Arnold was still the devoted husband-lover of Margaret Shippen; let him have the credit for that. And since he was--but I saw that I must get away speedily. “I have your permission, then, General?” I asked; and he gave it in a courtly bow, and turned back to his writing. I confess I had a most evil turn when the orderly on duty in the lower hall saluted and let me out into the open air. From force of habit--the habit of the hunted--I glanced up and down the street before venturing beyond the shelter of the doorway. It was well that I did, for just past the tavern, three men were coming on abreast, two of them plainly recognizable as Lieutenant Charles Castner and the spy, James Askew; and the third was strangely familiar in his gait and carriage, though for the down-drooped hat-brim I could not see his face. My first impulse was to warn Champe; the next to stand still and see what form the catastrophe threatened to take. If the trio was coming on to Arnold’s door, I would step inside, call the sergeant to his duty, and we would die as soldiers should. But this test of last-ditch courage was not made. At the door of the hostelry the three men turned in and disappeared, and a few minutes later, Castner came out alone and made straight for Sir Henry Clinton’s quarters. That was my cue, and going to the orderly-room, I roused Champe from his nap before the hearth. “Castner is back,” I said hastily. “He came down the street just now with Askew and another man, left his companions at the tavern, and has gone alone to Sir Henry Clinton’s house.” The sergeant yawned and felt tenderly of his throat, a gesture that was growing into a habit with him. “Orders, Captain Dick,” he said, parrot-like. “There are none. I am going into the town for an hour or more, and you may do as you think best: stay here and face it out when it comes, or cut and run for it. You may have an hour’s grace, or two or three, or no time at all.” “And you,” he said; “what will you do?” “I shall come back here and see the grist put through the mill, as I may be allowed to.” “Then here I stay,” he announced calmly, sitting down; and so I left him, hoping little ever to see him again as a free man. There was no corporal’s guard waiting to seize me at the outer door, as I more than half expected there would be; and taking advantage of the gathering dusk, I got away from the dangerous neighborhood as swiftly and unobtrusively as possible, arguing that it would take some little time for Castner to spread a net that would reach over any very wide area of the town.