So my conscience was clear at last and yet all this had little bearing upon things present and pressing. When all was said, I was to the full as likely to pay the spy’s penalty now as I should have been had I been taken red-handed in the very act of abducting Arnold. The facts of my mission were all known to Castner, and it was upon these facts, and not upon the accomplishment, that I should be tried and condemned. Why Castner had waited so long before springing his trap I could not guess. Now that he was back from wherever he had been and with the spy Askew safely in tow, a word to Sir Henry Clinton and another to Arnold were all that were needed. And, surely, Castner had had time to preach an entire sermon to either or both of them since I had seen him passing the tavern with his two companions. I had a part answer to this puzzling question of the reason for Castner’s delay when, while I was as yet hanging upon my heel and not knowing which way to turn, I saw an officer with the shoulder-straps of a general descending Sir Henry Clinton’s steps; a man walking slowly and with his head bowed and his hands tightly locked behind him. The man was Benedict Arnold; and they had just been giving him the undeniable proof of my treachery. I knew it as well as if I had been an eavesdropper at the conference behind Sir Henry Clinton’s closed door. Now you may scoff, if you will, but this discovery, the clinching of the nail, as you may say, hurt me unspeakably for the moment. Deny it as we may, we do all live more or less upon the good opinions of our fellow creatures; and surely I had painted myself as a villain of the deepest dye for this man who was coming on with his head bowed and carrying in his heart a bitter disappointment to go with him back to his quarters in the adjoining house. I turned away, immeasurably saddened in spite of the strange and most welcome heart-lightening; and I do think I would have given much at that moment to be able to tell Arnold that I had spared him at the final crisis. He would never know, and perhaps that was best; yet I thought it was a needless twist of the thumb-screws of fate both for him and for me that he could not know. But there was no time for repining. I had no thought of taking the first step in an effort to secure my own safety until after I should have made sure of Beatrix’s embarkation and departure; indeed, it was this, as much as anything else, that had made me miss the chance of fighting it out with the saturnine sergeant in the boat. By every lover’s obligation it was my first duty to see Beatrix and my Cousin Ju on board the _Nancy Jane_, with the staunch little schooner plunging on its way down the bay; and after that I could make my flight--if Champe should not have turned up again to need a friend, and if all the avenues should not be closed to me.