"And you consider that a reasonable request?"
"Oh, sir, I must make it! I can ask no less!"
"But you say if this scheme works you lose by it. What will you lose?"
"I may lose track of him! If I lose track of him I may have to go through a long life not knowing whether he is dead or alive."
"And suppose--why,--young lady, I thought you were unmarried. I--oh, what do you mean; is he--?"
Charlotte's head drooped and her hands trembled. "Yes, by law and church decree he is my husband."
"Good Heaven!" murmured the General, drew a breath, and folded his arms. "But, madam! if a man _abandons_ his wife--"
"Good for you!" "It was vital for me. But I did it on evidence which our laws ignore, the testimony of slaves. Oh, General, don't try to untangle me; only stop him!"
"Ah! madam, I'll do the little I can. How am I to know him?"
"By a pistol-wound in his right hand, got last week. He would have got it in his brain but for my pleading. His name is Oliver."
"Oliver; hmm! any relation to Charlotte Oliver, your so called newspaper correspondent? I'd like to stop her.--How?--I don't quite hear you."
The two officers glanced sharply at each other. When the General turned again he flushed resentfully. "Have you never resumed your maiden name?"
"Then, madam, tell me this! With a whole world of other people's names to choose from, why _have_ you borrowed Charlotte Oliver's? Have you come here determined to be sent to prison, Miss Coralie Rothvelt?"
Charlotte did not move an eyelash. Gradually a happy confidence lighted her face. "Freedom or prison is to me a secondary question. I came here determined to use only the truth. No wild creature loves to be free more than I do. I want to go back into our lines, and to go at once; but--I am Charlotte Oliver."
"Young lady, listen to me. I know your story is nearly all true. I know some good things about you which you have modestly left out; one of the rebels who stopped where you did last night and rode with you this morning was brought to me a prisoner half an hour ago. But he said your name was Rothvelt. How's that?"
"Unfortunately, General, my name is Charlotte Oliver. Two or three times I have had use for so much concealment as there was in the childish prank of turning my name wrong side out." The speaker made a sign to the chief-of-staff: "Write the two names side by side and see if they are not one."