“No doubt it would be a most painful duty to you, but it is equally painful to others. You are the third officer whom I have sent for this evening to do this piece of business, and each of the others asked me to reconsider. Then your name occurred to me. I wondered I had not thought of it before. You are peculiarly well situated to do it. You are, I believe, intimate with both of Colonel Tremaine’s sons, and you could readily make it appear that you have been designated merely to escort Mrs. Neville Tremaine within the Federal lines in order that she may join her husband. You have the tact and judgment to allay any suspicion which might arise in the minds of Colonel Tremaine and his family, and the fact that your relatives are guests at Harrowby would make it seem the most natural thing in the world that you should be the one chosen to escort Mrs. Neville Tremaine. You will approach the Federal lines under flag of truce, and everything possible will be done to make it appear that Mrs. Neville Tremaine is going of her own free will to her husband. But you must not forget, Captain Isabey, that you will be performing a military duty, and that Mrs. Neville Tremaine must be closely watched, and not the slightest opportunity given her to communicate with the enemy until she is safely within their lines.” Isabey remained silent, sitting with folded arms, and his black eyes fixed on General Farrington’s light blue ones. His soul was in a tumult, and, being a fighting man, he felt a perfectly natural and human desire to wreak vengeance on the man who had given him this work to do; but his sober common sense had in no wise deserted him. If the hateful thing had to be done, was it not better, as General Farrington said, that it should be done by one who loved the ground on which Angela trod, and who could no more have doubted her integrity than he could have murdered her? “I give you much liberty in carrying out my orders,” said General Farrington, after a while. “I understand fully the disagreeable nature of what I am directing you to do; and one of the consolations I have in this matter is that everything possible will be done, to save not only Mrs. Neville Tremaine’s own feelings, but those of Colonel Tremaine’s family. Surely you can arrange so that Mrs. Neville Tremaine’s departure will appear a voluntary act?” “There is not the slightest difficulty in persuading anyone of that,” replied Isabey, in a low voice, “except Mrs. Neville Tremaine herself. It would be impossible to deceive her.”