If a look might be a leven-stroke to do a man to death, I warrant you my lady's flashing eyes would have crisped me to a cinder¹ where I stood fumbling² with one hand behind me for the latch³ of the slammed door. Scorn, indignation, outraged⁴ maiden⁵ modesty⁶, all these thrust at me like air-drawn⁷ daggers⁸; and it needed not her, "Fie, for shame, Captain Ireton!—and you would call yourself a gentleman!" to set me afire with prinklings of abashment⁹.  
What could I say or do? The accursed door-latch would not find itself to let me fly; and as for excusings, I could not tell her that her own father had thrust me thus upon her. Yet, had she let me be, I hope I should have had the wit to find the door fastening and the grace to run away; in truth, I had the latch in hand when she lashed¹⁰ out at me again, and my tingling¹¹ shame began to give place to that master-devil of passion which is never more than half whipped into subjection in the best of us.
 
"How are you better than the man you warned me of?" she cried. And then, in a tempest of grief: "Oh! you would not leave me the respect I bore you; you must even rob me of that to fling it down and trample¹² it under foot!"
 
Figure to yourselves, my dears, that I was wholly blameless in this unhappy breaking and entering, and so, mayhap, you may find excuse for me. For now, though I could have gone, I would not. Her glorious beauty, heightened beyond compare by the passionate¹³ outburst, held me spellbound. And at my ear the master-devil whispered: She is your wedded¹⁴ wife; yours for better or worse, till death part you. Who has a better right to look upon her thus?
 
So it was that the love-madness came upon me again, and that thin veneering wherewith the Christian¹⁵ centuries have so painfully overlaid the natural man in us was cracked and riven, and the barbarian¹⁷ which lies but skin-deep underneath¹⁸ bestirred himself and winked¹⁹ and blinked himself awake in giant might, as did the primal²⁰ man when he rose up to look about him for his mate.
 
Before I knew what I would do, I was beside her, and honor, or what may stand therefor betwixt a man and his friend, was flung away. But when I would have crushed her sweetness in my arms she went upon her knees to me.... Ah, God! she knelt to me as she had knelt to that other would-be ravisher and begged me for mine own honor's sake to bethink me of what I would do.
 
"Oh, Monsieur John! be merciful as you are strong!" she pleaded. "Think what it will mean to you, and how you will loathe²² me and yourself as well when this madness is overpast! Oh, go; go quickly, lest I, too, forget—"
 
And so it was that I found sudden strength to turn and leave her kneeling there; turned to grope blindly for the door with all the pains of hell aflame within me.
 
For now I had put honor under foot; now I knew that I had truly earned her scorn and loathing²³. I could no longer plead that I was the puppet of fate flung against my will between this maiden and my dear lad. I was the wilful²⁴ offender²⁵; false to my love, false to my friend, a recreant²⁶ to every oath wherewith I had bound myself to be true and loyal to these two.
 
With such a flaming sword to drive me forth²⁷, I stumbled from the room, thinking only how I should quickest rid me of myself. Hastening to my garret sleeping-place I buckled²⁸ on my sword, found my shako, and went straight to my Lord's bed-chamber²⁹. My rap at the door went unanswered, and a broad-shouldered young fellow in a lieutenant³⁰'s uniform, lounging on a settle in the clock landing of the stair, told me Lord Cornwallis was gone out.
 
I was face to face with this young lieutenant before I recognized him; being so bent³¹ upon haste I should have passed him on the landing without a second glance had he not risen to grip me by the shoulders.
 
"By the Lord Harry³²!" he cried, "is it thus you pass an old friend without a word, Captain Ireton?"
 
'Twas my good death-watch; that Lieutenant Tybee of the light-horse who had sunk the British officer in the man in that trying night at Appleby Hundred. I returned his hearty³³ greeting as well as I might, and would have explained my present state and standing³⁴ but that I was loath²¹ to lie to him. But as to this, he saved me the shame of it.
 
"I could have sworn you were no rebel, Captain Ireton; indeed, I made bold to say as much to our colonel, after it was all over. I told him a soft word or two would have won you back to your old service. You see I knew better than the others what lay beneath all your madnesses that night."
 
"You knew somewhat, but not all," I said; and thereupon, lest he should involve me deeper and detain me longer when I was athirst to be gone, I hastened to ask where I might hope to find his Lordship and Colonel Tarleton.
 
"'Tis the hour for parade; you will find them at the camp," he replied. And then, out of the honest English heart of him: "Have you made your peace, Captain? Do you need a friend to go with you?"
 
I said I had been granted a hearing by Lord Cornwallis but a little while before; that by my Lord's appointment I was now a sort of honorary aide-de-camp.
 
"Good!" said the lieutenant, gripping my hand in a way to make me wince³⁵ for the lie-in-effect hidden in the simple statement of fact. Then he roared at the soldier standing guard at the house door below: "A mount for Captain Ireton—and be swift about it!"
 
He held me in talk till the horse was fetched, happily doing most of the talking himself, and when I was in the saddle gave me a hearty God-speed. Being so sick with self-despisings, I fear I made but a poor return for all this good comradeship; but at the time I could think of nothing but the hell that flamed within me, and of how I could soonest quench³⁶ the fires of it.
 
The town, which I had not seen since early summer, was but little changed by the British occupation, save in the livening of it by the near-at-hand camp of an armed host. Being but a halt-point en route in the northward³⁷ march, it was not fortified³⁸; indeed, for the matter of that, the camp proper was a little way without the town, as I have said.
 
I rode slowly across the common, skirting the commissary's quarters and making mental notes of all I saw; this from soldier habit solely³⁹, for at the time I had little thought of living on to make a spy's use of them. Arrived at the parade ground, I found my Lord galloping⁴⁰ through the lines on inspection⁴¹, and so I must draw rein⁴² in the background and wait my opportunity.
 
The pause gave space for some eye-sweep of the scene, and all the soldier blood in me was stirred by the sight, the first I had had in many a day, of a well-ordered army, fit, disciplined, machine-drilled to move like the parts of a wondrous⁴³ mechanism⁴⁴.
 
At the back of Lord Cornwallis and his galloping suite⁴⁵, Tarleton's famous light-horse legion was drawn up; and fronting it was the infantry⁴⁶, rank on rank, the glittering bayonets slanting⁴⁷ in the October sunlight as the regiments⁴⁸ moved into place, or standing in rigid⁴⁹ groves⁵⁰ of steel at the command to halt and port arms.
 
What was there in all our poor raw land to stand against this well-trained host, armed—as we were not—with the deadly bayonet, and moving as one man at the word of command? Not the bravest home guard or militia⁵¹ troop, I thought; and this seeing of what he had had to front on the field of Camden made me think less scornfully of Horatio Gates.
 
Riding presently around the field to be the nearer to the general when my time should come, I missed the mark completely. It so chanced that as the parade was ended my Lord and his suite were at the extreme right; and when the regiments broke ranks I was forced to skirt the entire camp to come into the road. By this time those I sought were gone into the town, so I must needs turn about and follow, with the thing I had to say still unspoken.
 
I need not drag you back and forth with me on the search I made to f............