Marcel and I had some leisure the next morning at our quarters.

"Marcel," said I, "I wish to talk to you on a matter of serious import."

"It must be of very high import, in truth," said Marcel, "if I may judge of its nature from the solemn look that clothes your face like a shroud."

"It is no matter of jest," I replied, "and it is of close concern to us both."

"Very well," replied Marcel, carelessly, flinging himself into a chair. "Then let it be kept a secret no longer."

"It is this, Marcel," I replied, and I was in deep earnest. "I am tired of the false characters we have taken upon ourselves. The parts are awkward. We do not fit in them. We have been required to serve against our own people. Only luck, undeserved luck, has saved us from the rope. I want to reassume my own character and my own name, to be myself again."

I spoke with some heat and volubility. I was about to add that I was sorry ever to have gone into such a foolish enterprise, but the thought of a fair woman's face recalled the words. And this brought me another thought—that I was unwilling to continue this false rÔle with Mary Desmond's eyes upon me.

"Is that all?" asked Marcel, beginning to whistle a gay dancing-tune which some newly arrived officers had brought over from London.

"No, it is not," I replied. "I said I wished to be myself again, and that I mean to be."

"I think I shall do likewise," said Marcel, cutting off his tune in the beginning. "I am tired of this piece of stage-play myself, but I wanted you to say so first."

"It is time to leave it off," I added, "and go back to our duty."

"You speak truly," said Marcel. "It would not be pleasant to be killed by American bullets, or be forced to fire upon our old comrades. And yet the adventure has not been without interest. Moreover, let it not be forgotten that we have had plenty to eat, a good luck which we knew not for two years before."

He said the last in such a whimsical tone of regret that I laughed despite myself.

"There is no need to laugh," said Marcel. "A good dinner is a great item to a starving man, and, as you know, I am not without experience in the matter of starvation."

Wherein Marcel spoke the truth, for during our long campaigns hunger often vexed us more sorely than the battle.

"I shall be glad to see our comrades and to serve with them again. When will we have a chance to leave?" he asked.

"I do not know," I said; "and I do not see that it matters. I am not going."

"Then will his lordship condescend to explain himself?" said Marcel. "You speak in riddles."

"We have come into this town, Marcel," I said, "in the guise of Englishmen and as the friends of the English. We have eaten and drank with them, and they have treated us as comrades. If I were to steal away, I would think that I had played the part of a mere spy."

"What then?" asked Marcel.

"I mean to take what I consider to be the honorable course," I said. "I mean to go to Sir William Howe, tell him what I am and what I have done, and yield myself his prisoner."

"You need not look so confoundedly virtuous about it," said Marcel. "I shall go with you and tell what I am and what I have done, and yield myself his prisoner in precisely the same manner that you will. Again I wanted you to say the thing first."

I never doubted that Marcel would do what was right, despite his habitual levity of manner, and his companionship strengthened me in my resolution.

"When shall we go to Sir William?" asked Marcel.

"To-day,—within the hour," I said.

"Do you think he will hang us as spies?" asked Marcel, gruesomely.

"I do not know," I said. "I think there is some chance that he will."

In truth, this was a matter that weighed much upon me. Do not think that I was willing to be a martyr, or wanted to die under any circumstances. Nothing was further from my desires.

"He is like enough to be in a very bad humor," said Marcel, "over his failures and his removal from the chief command. I wish for our sakes he felt better."

By representing to an aide that our business was of the most pressing importance, we secured admission to Sir William Howe. I think we came into the room before he expected us, for when we entered the doorway he was standing at the window with the grayest look of melancholy I ever saw on any man's face. In that moment I felt both sorrow and pity for him, for we had received naught but kindness at his hands. I stumbled purposely, that I might warn him of our coming, and he turned to meet us, his face assuming a calm aspect.

"You sent word that your business is pressing," he said. "But I hope that Lieutenant Melville and Captain Montague are in good health."

"We know not the bodily condition of Lieutenant Melville and Captain Montague," I said, "but we trust that both are well."

"What sort of jesting is this?" he said, frowning. "Remember that, though my successor has been appointed, I am yet commander-in-chief."

"It is no jest," I replied. "We speak in the utmost respect to you. I am not Lieutenant Melville of the British army, nor is my friend Captain Montague. Those officers are prisoners in the hands of the Americans."

"Then who are you?" he asked.

"We are American officers," I replied, "who, in a moment of rashness and folly, took the places of Captain Montague and Lieutenant Melville."

"Is this truth or insanity?" he asked, sharply.

"I think it is both," I replied, soberly.

He smiled somewhat, and then asked more questions, whereupon I told the whole story from first to last, furnishing such proofs that he could not doubt what I said. For a while he sat in a kind of maze. Then he said,—

"Are you aware, gentlemen, that the most natural thing for me to do is to hang you both as spies?"

We admitted with the greatest reluctance that the laws of war would permit it.

"Still, it was but a mad prank," said Sir William, "and you have given yourselves up when you might have gone away. I cannot see of what avail it would be to the British cause, to me, or to any one to hang you. I like you both, and you, Lieutenant Chester, as you call yourself, and as I suppose you are, threw that Hessian colonel into the street for me so handsomely that I must ever be in your debt, and I don't suppose that you had anything to do with the attempt of that villian, Wildfoot; moreover, it seems that you are quite capable of hanging yourselves in due time. I will spare the gallows. But I wish you were Englishmen, and not Americans."

I felt as if the rope were slipping off our necks when Sir William spoke these words, and my spirits rose with most astonishing swiftness. I must say that Sir William Howe, though a slothful man and a poor general, was kind of heart sometimes, and I have never liked to hear people speak ill of him.

"Your case," he said, "is likely to be a source of mighty gossip in this town; but I shall not leave you here long to enjoy your honors. We exchange for Lieutenant Belfort and some prisoners who are in the hands of the rebels. You will be included in the exchange, and you will leave Philadelphia soon. You need not thank me. In truth, I ought to hang you as spies; but I am curious to know what act of folly you will commit next."

I am confident that Sir William in reality liked us greatly, for he was fond of adventure. Perhaps that was the reason he was not a better general.

"I shall have to place you under guard," said Sir William, calling an aide, "and if ever this war ends and we are alive then, I should like to see you both in England, and show you off as the finest pair of rascals that ever deserved to be hanged and were not."

"It appears to me that we came out of that matter easily," said Marcel, as we left the room.

We remained for a while in Philadelphia as prisoners of the British, and, to our great amazement and equal pleasure, found ourselves heroes with the men who had been our comrades there for a brief space. They considered it the finest and boldest adventure of which they had heard, and Marcel's new cousin, Rupert Harding, was not last in his appreciation.

"I think that I shall prefer you to the real cousin, when I see him," said Harding to Marcel, "and I shall always claim the kinship."

We parted from them with sincere regret when Sir Henry Clinton, who, succeeding Sir William Howe in the chief command, saw no reason to change the latter's plan in this matter, sent us to the American army in exchange for Belfort and others.