Not from fear of giving pain to yourself but to others. I don't know that THAT is right, either. A certain amount of pain must be suffered in this world--even by one's enemies. Well, I have looked into your case, General Brant." He took up a piece of paper from his desk, scrawled with two or three notes in pencil. "I think this is the way it stands. You were commanding a position at Gray Oaks when information was received by the department that, either through neglect or complicity, spies were passing through your lines. There was no attempt to prove your neglect; your orders, the facts of your personal care and precaution, were all before the department. But it was also shown that your wife, from whom you were only temporarily separated, was a notorious secessionist; that, before the war, you yourself were suspected, and that, therefore, you were quite capable of evading your own orders, which you may have only given as a blind. On this information you were relieved by the department of your command. Later on it was discovered that the spy was none other than your own wife, disguised as a mulatto; that, after her arrest by your own soldiers, you connived at her escape--and this was considered conclusive proof of--well, let us say--your treachery."
"But I did not know it was my wife until she was arrested," said Brant impulsvely.
The President knitted his eyebrows humorously.
"Don't let us travel out of the record, General. You're as bad as the department. The question was one of your personal treachery, but you need not accept the fact that you were justly removed because your wife was a spy. Now, General, I am an old lawyer, and I don't mind telling you that in Illinois we wouldn't hang a yellow dog on that evidence before the department. But when I was asked to look into the matter by your friends, I discovered something of more importance to you. I had been trying to find a scrap of evidence that would justify the presumption that you had sent information to the enemy. I found that it was based upon the fact of the enemy being in possession of knowledge at the first battle at Gray Oaks, which could only have been obtained from our side, and which led to a Federal disaster; that you, however, retrieved by your gallantry. I then asked the secretary if he was prepared to show that you had sent the information with that view, or that you had been overtaken by a tardy sense of repentance. He preferred to consider my suggestion as humorous. But the inquiry led to my further discovery that the only treasonable correspondence actually in evidence was found upon the body of a trusted Federal officer, and had been forwarded to the division commander. But there was no record of it in the case."
"Why, I forwarded it myself," said Brant eagerly.
"So the division commander writes," said the President, smiling, "and he forwarded it to the department. But it was suppressed in some way. Have you any enemies, General Brant?"
"Not that I know of."
"Then you probably have. You are young and successful. Think of the hundred other officers who naturally believe themselves better than you are, and haven't a traitorous wife. Still, the department may have made an example of you for the benefit of the only man who couldn't profit by it."
"Might it not have been, sir, that this suppression was for the good report of the service--as the chief offender was dead?"
"I am glad to hear you say so, General, for it is the argument I have used successfully in behalf of your wife."
"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.
