“Something of importance, evidently,” said Somers. “He has dropped the letter on the floor.”

“So he has,” said she, glancing at the document. “Thus far I have resisted the propensity of Mother Eve to know more than the law allows; and I think I will not yield to it now. It would hardly be honorable for me to read the letter after the major has declined to inform me what has occurred. But, whatever it may be, we will have some dinner.”

Whatever opinions Somers may have entertained on some of the other points suggested by the fair hostess, he had none in regard to the last proposition. He was absolutely and heartily in favor of the dinner, without regard to Mother Eve’s curiosity, or her favored representative then before him. The dinner was a good one, though the rebels had so recently gathered up all the provision which the country appeared to contain. With every mouthful that he ate Somers’s strength seemed mysteriously to return to him.

The dinner was not so formal as might have been expected in the house of a Maryland grandee, and did not occupy over half an hour; but in that half hour he had grown strong and vigorous again, and felt equal to any emergency which might occur. However agreeable the society of the fascinating Maud had proved, he began to be very impatient for the moment when he could, without outraging the laws of propriety, break the spell which bound him. He had faithfully discharged his duty to the inner man, and he bethought him that he owed another and higher obligation to his country; that the commanding general of the first army corps was expecting to hear from him, though the time given him to complete his mission had not yet expired.

While he was considering some fit excuse with which to tear himself away from his interesting companion,—for it was not prudent to inform an avowed rebel lady that he had been engaged in collecting information for the use of a Union general, and must return to report the result of his mission,—while he was thinking what he should say to her, he heard something which sounded marvellously like the tramp of horses’ feet on the walks which surrounded the mansion. These sounds might have been sufficient to create a tempest of alarm in his mind if he had not believed that he was far enough from the camps of the rebels to insure the estate from a visit of their cavalry. He did not know exactly where he was in relation to the line of either army; but he felt a reasonable assurance that he was out of the reach of danger from the enemy.

He listened, therefore, with 

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