"By heaven, I'll stop you!" she cried. "Help! A rebel--a spy! Ah, you
men yonder--this way! A rebel spy!"

Philip looked over her head, out of the window. Far up the street
swaggered five or six figures which, upon coming under a corner lamp
whose rays yellowed a small circle of snow, showed to be those of
British soldiers. Their unaltered movements evidenced that they had
not heard her cry. Thereupon she shouted, with an increased voice:

"Soldiers! Help! Surround this house! A rebel--"

She got no further, for Philip dragged her away from the window, and,
when she essayed to scream the louder, he placed one hand over her
mouth, the other about her neck. Holding her thus, he forced her into
the rear chamber, and then toward the window by which he meant to
leave. At its very ledge he let her go, and made to step out to the
roof of the veranda. But she grasped his clothes with the power of
rage and desperation, and set up another screaming for help.

In an agony of mind at having to use such painful violence against a
woman, and how much more so against the wife he still loved; and at
the grievous appearance that she was willing to sacrifice him upon the
British gallows rather than let him mar her purpose, he flung her away
with all necessary force, so that, with a final shriek of pain and
dismay, she fell to the floor exhausted.

He cast an anguished glance upon her, as she lay defeated and
half-fainting; and, knowing not to what fate he might be leaving her,
he moaned, "God pity her!" and stepped out upon the sloping roof. He
scrambled to the edge, let himself half-way down by the trellis,
leaped the rest of the distance, and ran through the back garden from
the place he had so well loved.

While his wife, lying weak upon the floor of her chamber, gazed at the
window through which he had disappeared, and, as if a new change had
occurred within her, sobbed in consternation:

"Oh, what have I done? He is a man, indeed!--and I have lost him!"

CHAPTER XIII.

_Wherein Captain Winwood Declines a Promotion._

Philip assumed that the greatest risk would lie in departing the town
by the route over which he had made his entrance, and in which he had
left a trail of alarm. His best course would be in the opposite
direction.

Therefore, having leaped across the fence to the alley behind the
Faringfield grounds, he turned to the right and ran; for he had
bethought him, while fleeing through the garden, that