Nevertheless the moisture of the storm was scarcely sun-dried the next afternoon before he was again galloping up the long avenue of the grove and inquiring of old Janus, appropriately playing janitor, if Captain Baynell were within, as he had some special business with him. As on other occasions there was no glimpse or sound of feminine presence in the halls or on the stairs as he followed the old servant up the softly padded ascent. He fancied the old negro was much disaffected; he had a plaintive, remonstrant submissiveness, and a sort of curious, shadowy, aged look that seemed a concomitant of a sullen reproach. Had they been beyond earshot of the household, Ashley would have bidden the old man out with his grievance, but naught was said, and presently the door of Captain Baynell's bedroom closed upon him. "Did you know that Tompkins had sent up here and impressed Mrs. Gwynn's horse?" Baynell had not risen from a seat at an escritoire, where he seemed to have been writing, and Ashley was half across the room and had flung himself into a chair before the fire ere his friend could lay down the pen. "Yes, I knew it." "Why--why--how did he know they had the animal in the cellar? He was up here the day before yesterday, and that old darkey told him that the horse had already been pressed into service." "He must have been put into the cellar earlier. You know we heard the animal there last night." "Why--why--" Colonel Ashley stammered in his haste--"how did _Tompkins_ know?" "How?--why, of course I notified him--this morning." Vertnor Ashley was altogether inarticulate. Baynell replied to the surprise in his face. "Why--whatever did you think I should do?" "Hold your tongue, of course!--as I held mine! Why, I thought you were a friend of these people." Baynell looked at him, surprised in turn. "And so I am." "And they have been kindness itself to you!" "But do they expect me to return their kindness by helping them deceive the government, or to hold back supplies the army needs? They are mistaken if they do! It is a matter of conscience!" "Oh, a _little_ thing like that--" Ashley snapped his fingers--"a lady's horse!" "It is a matter of conscience!" Baynell reiterated. "I tell you, my friend, I wouldn't have such a conscience as that in the house! It's a selfish beast--a raging monster! exceedingly deadly to the interests of other folks," Ashley retorted with his bright eyes aglow. Baynell glanced out of the great window, with its white, embroidered muslin curtains, between which he could see the ranges in the distance, Roanoke in the mid-spaces, the white tents of the girdle of encampments on all the hillsides about the little city; at intervals, held in cup-like hollows, were great glittering ponds of water, the accumulations of the storm, glassing the clouds like mirrors, and realizing to the eye the geologist's description of the prehistoric days when lakes were here.