At this she wished to know particularly the cause of quarrel and how Seytoun had offended; and when I told her that, too, and how he had cast the slur not only upon the women of my own house, but also upon hers, she bit her lip and I saw the beautiful eyes kindle. “I would have saved his miserable life for him, Dick, if I could. That was why I made you promise--I knew you would remember his killing of your kinsman and slay him without mercy if you ever got him at your sword’s point. And now, my lover, I release you. If he pushes this quarrel on you--” It was enough, and I took her in my arms and kissed her, saying, because it had to be said, sooner or later: “Good-by, dearest. The parting time has come. In the larger matter I can’t promise; but I’ll do what lies in me. If I am strong enough to rise to your high plane, I’ll come to you, if I can--when I can--with clean hands. But if I am not great enough, I shall not ask you to marry the fragments.” “But I love the fragments,” she said simply; and this was her word of leave-taking. Once more out in the keen cold air of the December night and I was face to face with the moment of decision. Love, duty, honor, and vindictive hatred of Benedict Arnold all dragged me their several ways; but when at last I won back unhindered to the house of doom, and to the guard-room where John Champe was pacing moodily back and forth before a cold hearth, the decision was no longer trembling in the balance. As if a veil had been swept aside I saw into what depths vindictive rage and soldier patriotism had plunged me. Mr. Hamilton, himself, I felt sure, would be the first to call me back if he could know that I must sink myself neck-deep in a mire of perfidy too foul to be borne if I were to accomplish now the thing he had sent me to do. XX TRAITORS ALL IT WAS still early in the evening when I reentered the ground-floor room of Arnold’s house--the room of the cold hearth--on my return from the soul-searching, but most heart-warming interview with Beatrix Leigh. Champe wheeled quickly to face me at the door-closing, and I saw that his day-long moodiness had vanished to give place to suppressed excitement. “My God!” he said grittingly. “I thought you’d never come!--or that the provost-guard with the handcuffs would get here first. Sir Judas has played fairly into our hands at last. For a good half-hour past he has been walking in the garden--alone!” “Ah?” said I, seeing how poignantly the matter had climaxed in my short absence, and not seeing, in the suddenness of it, what course I ought to steer. “So you think our chance has come?”