“He did not. Like the true gentleman he has ever shown himself to be, he endeavored to disguise the facts, to withhold from me all knowledge of your dastardly action. I know it by the infamous sentence pronounced against him and by your falsehood to me.” “Edith, you mistake,” he urged anxiously. “I--I was told that he had been sent North.” She drew a deep breath, as though she could scarcely grasp the full audacity of his pretence to ignorance. “You appeared to be fully informed but now as to his death sentence.” “Yes, I heard of it while away, and intended telling you as soon as I reached our quarters.” I could feel the scorn of his miserable deception as it curled her lip, and her figure seemed to straighten between us. “Then,” she said slowly, “you will doubtless agree that I have done no more than was right, and will therefore permit him this chance of escape from so unmerited a fate; for you know as well as I do that he has been wrongly condemned.” He stepped forward with a half-smothered oath, and rested one hand heavily upon her shoulder. “An exceedingly neat trap,” he said, with a grim laugh, “a most ingenious snare; yet hardly one I am likely to be caught in. I am not quite so green, my lady. What! let that fellow go? become the laughing stock of you and your Johnny Reb lover? I rather guess not, madam. Damn him! I will hang him now higher than Haman, just to show Queen Esther that it can be done. Out of the way, madam!” Rendered desperate by her slight resistance and his own jealous hatred, he thrust the woman aside so rudely that she fell forward upon one knee. His revolver was yet in his right hand, gleaming in the starlight, but before he could raise or fire it I had grasped the steel barrel firmly, and the hammer came down noiselessly upon the flesh of my thumb. The next instant we were locked close together in fierce struggle for the mastery. He was the heavier, stronger man; I the younger and quicker. From the first every effort on both sides was put forth solely to gain command of the weapon,--his to fire, mine to prevent, for I knew well at the sound of the discharge there would come a rush of blue-coats to his rescue. My first fierce onset had put him on the defensive, but as we tugged and strained his superiority in weight began to tell, and slowly he bore me backward, desperately contesting every inch I was thus compelled to yield.