“There are two,” returned the General. “This Ely has it that my dear wife knew Peg's bad conduct and condemned her for it. That is false; my wife spoke of Peg within a six-month; she loved her like her own child; and, I well recall, she kissed Peg when last we left this place. Then, too, Ely asserts how Timberlake was jealous of Eaton before he sailed for the Mediterranean, hated him as Peg's tempter, and would have slain him. That, also, I should know to be a lie; for here,” and the General crossed to a shelf and took down a rich Turkish tobacco pouch, “is a tobacco pocket which Timberlake sent to Eaton with a letter asking him to give it me when I arrived; and the letter bore date not ten days before Timberlake died. There remain but two great delinquencies alleged; the one here and the other in New York; and both are capable of proof for either their truth or falsity.” “And how shall we go about that proof?” I asked. “As a primary step, then, let us have Noah with us.” Noah came, and the General put the Ely letter into his dark, nervous hands. “The gentleman seems marvelously prompt,” said Noah, “to decide a woman's fame away on barest hearsay. Doubtless he is a good Christian, but he would make a bad judge.” “This is what you will do, Noah, if you love me,” said the General: “Go to Philadelphia. Squeeze from this Ely the name of that reptile on whose word he starts about this crime against innocence. Then press to New York for the evidence needed to display the falsehood he tells concerning Peg in that place.” When Noah had gone forth, the General called in Henry Lee, who was a secret, truthworthy man, and, dictating while Lee did the pen work, proceeded to beat the Reverend Ely and his lies as folk beat carpets. The General, when it was done, dismissing Lee, read to me his answer; and I could not so much as add one word. It was as complete a retort, and withal as slashing an arraignment of this Ely for his own cruel part, as might be compassed with paper and ink. I listened; and I never loved the General half so well before. “And yet,” observed the General, when he had closed the reading and the letter lay ready for the post, “this Ely is but the mask for some rogue who hides behind him.” There was no more to do now, save wait for Noah's return. I had one ordeal of the spirit, however; that was when Peg came next day. I so yearned over her in pity, it marked itself in my face and she took some dim account of it. She went away wrong in her hunting for a cause, however. “What has been the mischance?” said Peg, getting up and standing behind my chair with a soft hand on each of my shoulders. “You've had poor news from your farms?” “A horse dead,” I replied. This was so far true as a word that the letter telling me thereof had but just arrived, and lay open on my table. “Only that a favorite horse has died,” I replied. “But he was one of the General's Truxton colts, and I but loth to lose him.”