“What have I done to-day that I had not done before last night, Beatrix?” I asked, shifting my position at the coach step so that I could keep one eye on Sir Henry Clinton’s door--for the possible coming of the twiddler of watch-seals was sorely dividing my attention, or diverting it. “You are wearing a coat that I do not like,” she announced, going back to the original cause of quarrel. “It is as good a coat as the one Ensign Brewster is wearing,” I ventured. “It is not!” she retorted. “He is wearing the coat of his king and country, and in his case it fits honestly.” “Well, then; this is the same coat I wore last night,” I urged, presuming rashly where I should have had more sense. “Last night is not to-day: and I have lived half a lifetime since last night.” “Then you think more of a cause than you do of a man?” I asked; and I would never have said such a thing to her if I had not been hag-ridden by my responsibility for one James Askew. “You are quibbling!” she returned. “The cause is much--God knows how much it is to our stricken country: but truth and faith and loyalty are more. I could honor you in spite of your colors, Dick, if you fought under them as honestly as Ensign Brewster does.” “I may be fighting more honestly than you think,” I broke out, pushed to the wall, as I was likely to be in any controversy with her. She took me up so quickly that I had no breathing space. “You have hinted before that you could explain if you would, Dick,” she said with low-toned eagerness. Then, looking past me to see if any of the others were within earshot: “Tell me--is it a mask? Are you--” I made a swift gesture for silence. There are times when the very stones in the pavement must not be trusted. “You must not forget that you are speaking to a captain in Benedict Arnold’s Legion, or”--here I lowered my voice to mate it with her eager half-whisper--“that a word of what you have just hinted would hang that same captain higher than Haman!” “But you do not deny--you do not deny!” she fluttered. “Oh, Dick! give me one little thread to cling to--one look to tell me that you are--” I knew her bosom was heaving; that the quick tears had risen to quench the righteous indignation in the beautiful eyes. And yet I could not speak to her; could not even look at her. For here was Arnold coming down the house steps with Mistress Margaret on his arm; and, not fifty feet away, a smallish man in sober gray was standing before Sir Henry Clinton’s door, looking curiously up at the higher windows and absently toying with a great bunch of seals at his watch-fob as he stared.