“I should like this duty executed at the earliest possible moment, but, of course, at a time and hour which would not excite alarm or suspicion in the minds of the rest of the family. If you leave early to-morrow morning, it will answer. Here are your written instructions, and here is some gold with which to provide Mrs. Neville Tremaine.” General Farrington drew out of his breast pocket a few gold pieces wrapped up in brown paper. “It is all I have,” he said, holding it out. “I thank you,” replied Isabey, stiffly, “but I have some gold, too. I should prefer, and I think Mrs. Neville Tremaine would prefer, that I should furnish the money for her necessary expenses.” He read the carefully written instructions given him, and they were perfectly intelligible. He was to be at Harrowby by two o’clock the next day, and at the earliest possible moment was to escort Mrs. Neville Tremaine to the Federal lines. A brief official note to Mrs. Neville Tremaine was inclosed, in which she was notified that if she was again found within Confederate lines she would be subject to arrest and imprisonment. “This you will give to Mrs. Neville Tremaine at parting,” said General Farrington. As Isabey folded the papers up and put them in his breast pocket General Farrington said to him: “I would rather put fifty men in jail for life than arrest this one girl. I feel as if I were plunging my sword into the breast of a dove. But this is war, Captain Isabey.” Isabey said no word, and, silently saluting, went out again into the night. The cold rain struck him like a sharp hand in the face. As he had said, it was easy enough to make it appear that Angela, under his protection, was seeking her husband; but Angela herself, how should he tell her, what words could he use to soften it? Ah, there was no softening it! And suppose she should refuse to go? She was an impulsive creature, knowing little of the world, full of rash courage, and the last woman on earth to sit calmly under a charge of treachery. And if she went quietly it would be to go to Neville Tremaine’s arms, and he, Isabey, would be the one to send her to that haven. He would never see her again, of that he felt quite sure; nor could he bear to see her as Neville Tremaine’s wife. In one more day, one day of shame and wretchedness, he would be forever parted from Angela. Isabey was no more generous in his love than are most men. He wanted Angela’s sweet society for himself, and grudged every look and word she might give her husband. He realized what Angela did not--that all those sweet confidences, however innocent, between Isabey and herself, that turning to him always for his opinion, that delicious intimacy of the soul between them, must come to an end when Angela held her real position as a wife.