"
"Then you know it all, sir?" said Brant after a gloomy pause.
"All, I think. Come, General, you seemed just now to be uncertain about
your enemies. Let me assure you, you need not be so in regard to your
friends."
"I dare to hope I have found one, sir," said Brant with almost boyish
timidity.
"Oh, not me!" said the President, with a laugh of deprecation. "Some one
much more potent."
"May I know his name, Mr. President?"
"No, for it is a woman. You were nearly ruined by one, General. I
suppose it's quite right that you should be saved by one. And, of
course, irregularly."
"A woman!" echoed Brant.
"Yes; one who was willing to confess herself a worse spy than your
wife--a double traitor--to save you! Upon my word, General, I don't
know if the department was far wrong; a man with such an alternately
unsettling and convincing effect upon a woman's highest political
convictions should be under some restraint. Luckily the department knows
nothing of it."
"Nor would any one else have known from me," said Brant eagerly. "I
trust that she did not think--that you, sir, did not for an instant
believe that I"--
"Oh dear, no! Nobody would have believed you! It was her free confidence
to me.
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