The answer came in a flash of suspicion--the Colonel. He could be threatened with them, blackmailed, disgraced before Sir Henry Clinton, driven from his command. They were addressed merely to "Mortimer," discovered at Elmhurst, and were sufficient to convict of treason. It was a fiendish plot, well conceived, and Grant was fully capable of carrying it out to the end. I could realize what the possession of these papers meant to him--military advancement, a distribution of the Mortimer estate in which he would doubtless share, and a fresh hold on Claire whereby he could terrify the girl into accepting him. I stood there in uncertainty, turning these papers over and over in my hands, striving to determine my duty. Should I return to Elmhurst? To do so would only bring me into renewed peril, and would apparently benefit no one. Without this packet Grant was helpless to injure Colonel Mortimer. As to Claire, Seldon would protect her for the present, and as soon as the father returned, he would doubtless compel her to accompany him back to Philadelphia. The best service I could render was to destroy these notes, and then seek out Eric Mortimer, in Lee's camp, and tell him the whole story. All that any one could do now was to warn the Mortimers against Grant, to let them know his treachery, and this could be best accomplished through Eric. Although in different armies, striving against each other in the field, there must still exist some means of communication between father and son, or, if not, then between brother and sister. With flint and steel I built a small fire of leaves in a cleft beside the road, and fed to the flames one by one the papers from the packet, glancing over each one again to make sure of its contents; all were addressed alike, simply "Mortimer," but upon two I found the word "Elmhurst." It was easy to see how the discovery of such communications would tempt an unscrupulous scoundrel like Grant to use them to injure another, and win his own end, but why had that young Eric failed to destroy them as soon as received? When the last paper had been reduced to ashes, I stamped out the embers of fire under my boot heel, and, with lighter heart, rode down the hill toward the ford. CHAPTER XXV BETWEEN LOVE AND DUTY It was already growing dusk when I rode into our lines at Valley Forge. A brief interview with Colonel Hamilton revealed his appreciation of my work, and that my hastily made notes of the Philadelphia defences had been received twenty-four hours earlier. They had been delivered at headquarters by an officer of Lee's staff; no, not a boyish-looking fellow, but a black-bearded captain whose name had been forgotten. All Hamilton could remember was that the notes had been originally brought in by an Indian scout. Eager to discover Eric Mortimer I asked a week's release from duty, but there was so much sickness in the camp, that this request was refused, and I was ordered to my regiment.