He was looking past me before I had finished, with that absent gaze I was coming to associate with his milder moods, and when I had made an end he waved his hand and said: “You are a merciful man, Captain Page; which is rather to your credit if you do not carry it too far. If Major Simcoe complains to me, I shall know what to say to him.” Now was my time to vanish, but as I was turning away, he broke in again: “I gave you leave for the forenoon, Captain, but I am tempted to ask you to do me a small personal favor, if you will. Mistress Arnold does not yet know of the delay in our departure, and if you can make it convenient to see her and to say to her that I shall be engaged until after midday--” I bowed and said I should be only too glad to carry his message, which, for once in a way, was the truth in fact as well as in intention. Being free to go, I went hastily, and before Major Simcoe could return to catch me in this business of pipe-laying. Not to have Arnold’s errand on my mind, I made it my first care to discharge it quickly. It was Mistress Margaret herself who met me at the door of the Vandeventer house, and it hurt me to see how glad she was at the news I brought; hurt me because if our plans should succeed, the delay would mean nothing but agony and life-long sorrow for her. I did not go in, though she asked me very kindly if I would, but when I hung upon my leave-taking, she divined the cause and said: “Mistress Beatrix is quite well this morning, thank you, Captain Page, and I know she will be overjoyed to hear that you asked for her.” It was surely a needed pin-prick, and I responded to it. “It is truly wonderful, Mistress Margaret, how you are able to read a man’s inmost thoughts, and to set them in the words he is trying to find. Later in the day I trust the general may make me his letter carrier again, and if he does, may I hope--” “Your privilege is always to hope, Captain Page, and I think I should be the last person in the world to rob you of it,” she said; then she gave me a loving message to her husband, and truly I felt more and more the despicable villain the deeper I was drawn into this playing of the go-between for husband and wife. On my return to the lower end of the town, I made a détour to the western waterside with a view to familiarizing myself with the situation which would confront us when we should not have daylight to show us what we needed to see. The riverside was well guarded to a point far beyond the town, and the river itself was patrolled by small craft. I saw no rowing boats at all on that bank. It came to me now, that our greatest difficulty would lie in this finding of a suitable boat. Unless I could use my authority as an officer in seizing one, I fancied that we should look long before obtaining one in any other way. This would be an extra hazard, to be sure, but we were already so deep in hazards, that the addition of another could make little difference.