morning he sent Solomon and three other able scouts to look the
ground over east, west and south of the army. One of them was to take
the road to Hartford and deliver a message to Washington.

After the noon mess, Arnold mounted his horse and rode away alone. The
young Brigadier sent for his trusted friend, Captain Merriwether.

"Captain, the General has set out on the east road alone," said Jack.
"He is not well. There's something wrong with his heart. I am a
little worried about him. He ought not to be traveling alone. My
horse is in front of the door. Jump on his back and keep in sight of
the General, but don't let him know what you are doing."

A little later Mrs. Arnold entered the office of the new Brigadier in a
most cheerful mood.

"I have good news for you," she announced.

"What is it?"

"Soon I hope to make a happy ending of your love-story."

"God prosper you," said the young man.

She went on with great animation: "A British officer has come in a ship
under a flag of truce to confer with General Arnold. I sent a letter
to Margaret Hare on my own responsibility with the General's official
communication. I invited her to come with the party and promised her
safe conduct to our house. I expect her. For the rest we look to you."

The young man wrote: "This announcement almost took my breath. My joy
was extinguished by apprehension before it could show itself. I did
not speak, being for a moment confused and blinded by lightning flashes
of emotion."

"It is your chance to bring the story to a pretty end," she went on.
"Let us have a wedding at headquarters. On the night of the
twenty-eighth, General Washington will have returned. He has agreed to
dine with us that evening."

"I think that she must have observed the shadow on my face for, while
she spoke, a great fear had come upon me," he testified in the Court of
Inquiry. "It seemed clear to me that, if there was a plot, the capture
of Washington himself was to be a part of it and my sweetheart a
helpful accessory."

"'Are you not pleased?' Mrs. Arnold asked.

"I shook off my fear and answered: 'Forgive me. It is all so
unexpected and so astonishing and so very good of you! It has put my
head in a whirl.'

"Gentlemen, I could see no sinister motive in this romantic enterprise
of Mrs. Arnold," the testimony proceeds. "I have understood that her
sympathies were British but, if so, she had been discreet enough in
camp to keep