A sudden suspicion was in Ashley's mind. His resolution was taken on the instant. "I hope you will advance no objection; but I intend to see Mrs. Gwynn and Judge Roscoe, and assure them that _I_ had no part in giving this information to the quartermaster's department." Baynell looked at him with an indignant retort rising to his lips, then laughed satirically. "Do you imagine I left _you_ under that imputation?" "You consider it no imputation, but a duty. Now I don't see my duty in that light. And I prefer to make my position clear to them." Baynell already had his hand on the bell-cord, and it was with pointed alacrity that he gave the order when old Ephraim appeared--"Please say to Mrs. Gwynn and Judge Roscoe that Colonel Ashley and Captain Baynell wish to speak to them a few minutes on a matter of business if they are at leisure." Uncle Ephraim, in whose soul the misadventure about the horse was rankling deep, surlily assented, closed the door, and took his way downstairs. "I recken _you_ kin speak ter dem," he soliloquized,--"mos' ennything kin speak hyar. Who'd 'a' thought dat ar horse, dat Ac'obat, would set out ter talk ter de folks in de lawberry, like no four-footed one hev' done since de days ob Balaam's ass. But I ain't never hearn dat de ass was fool enough ter got hisse'f pressed inter de Fed'ral army. 'Fore de Lawd, dat horse wish now he had held his tongue an' stayed in de wine-cellar, wid dat good feed, whar I put him." Once in the library, the traits which so endeared Vertnor Ashley to himself, and eke to others, were amply in evidence. He was gentle, deferential, thoroughly straightforward and frank, albeit he saw the subject was a mortification to Judge Roscoe and abated his sense of his own dignity; still Ashley gave no offence. "I understand. It was a matter of conscience with Captain Baynell," said Judge Roscoe, seeking to dispose of the question in few words. "I can have no displeasure against a man for obeying the dictates of his own conscience, as every man must." "Well, I am happy to say I had no conscience in the matter," said Colonel Ashley. "Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Gwynn, with her curt, low, icy tone. "We have indeed fallen on evil times. Captain Baynell has conscience enough to destroy us all, if only he sees fit. And Colonel Ashley, by his own admission, has no conscience at all. Between the two we _must_ come to grief." "It seems to me a trifle," Ashley persisted smilingly, "brought to my attention accidentally on a hospitable occasion. For aught _I_ knew, you might have a permit, or the horse might have been a condemned animal, unsound, thus escaping the requisition. I had no orders to investigate your domestic affairs, nor to search for animals evading the impress. The men detailed to that duty are presumed to be capable of discharging it." "I assure you we have no feeling on that account--no antagonism--" began Judge Roscoe.