sh dupe of a double
traitor!"

"Silence!"

The words broke simultaneously from the lips of Clarence and Captain
Pinckney. They stood staring at each other--the one pale, the other
crimson--as Mrs. Brant, apparently oblivious of the significance of
their united adjuration, turned to Judge Beeswinger in the fury of her
still stifled rage and mortification.

"Keep your mercy for your fellow-spy," she said, with a contemptuous
gesture towards her husband; "I go with these gentlemen!"

"You will not," said Clarence quietly, "until I have said a word to you
alone." He laid his hand firmly upon her wrist.

The deputy and his prisoners filed slowly out of the courtyard together,
the latter courteously saluting Mrs. Brant as they passed, but turning
from Judge Beeswinger in contemptuous silence. The judge followed them
to the gate, but there he paused. Turning to Mrs. Brant, who was still
half struggling in the strong grip of her husband, he said,--

"Any compunction I may have had in misleading you by accepting your
invitation here I dismissed after I had entered this house. And I
trust," he added, turning to Clarence sternly, "I leave you the master
of it!"

As the gate closed behind him, Clarence locked it. When his wife turned
upon him angrily, he said quietly,--

"I have no intention of restraining your liberty a moment after our
interview is over, but until then I do not intend to be disturbed."

She threw herself disdainfully back in her chair, her hands clasped in
her lap in half-contemptuous resignation, with her eyes upon her long
slim arched feet crossed before her. Even in her attitude there was
something of her old fascination which, however, now seemed to sting
Clarence to the quick.

"I have nothing to say to you in regard to what has just passed in this
house, except that as long as I remain even nominally its master it
shall not be repeated. Although I shall no longer attempt to influence
or control your political sympathies, I shall not allow you to indulge
them where in any way they seem to imply my sanction. But so little do
I oppose your liberty, that you are free to rejoin your political
companions whenever you choose to do so on your own responsibility. But
I must first know from your own lips whether your sympathies are purely
political--or a name for something else?"

She had alternately flushed and paled, although still keeping her
scornful attitude as he went on, but there was no mistakin