30 Major And/ '6 and Gtneral Arnold. 



"By abandoning the cause that abandons its friends," she replied. 

 The secret chord in Arnold's bosom, which he had not dared himself 

 to touch, was struck he felt it thrill through every nerve. 



" Would you have me brand myself with the odious Yiame of trai- 

 tor?" asked Arnold, laying a grating emphasis on the word. 



" That," she replied, is the epithet already applied to you by the 

 King's party. We call the English tyrants, they denounce us as 

 traitors and rebels, and I confess with no slight show of reason." 



" Beatrice, I grant that men may honourably espouse opposite 

 parties even in civil warfare, but to desert my friends to betray my 

 country to cast away even the remnant of my former glory it is the 

 thought of this that o'ermasters my revenge." 



" Why," exclaimed his wife impatiently, " do you speak of friends 

 and country ' have they not trampled upon you, and cast you off like 

 a vile reptile ? And you hesitate to bestow your services where 

 riches and honours await to recompense them." 



" Leave me, dearest Beatrice," exclaimed the agitated man, sinking 

 into a chair. " I cannot at this moment determine on so momentous 

 a step. It is it is disgrace, but the accursed brand has been 

 already set upon my brow ; what matters it now if the characters 

 be changed " 



His wife perceiving that the insidious poison of her counsel was 

 working to her wishes, left him to his own meditations. During that 

 entire night the ex-general paced his apartment without interruption, 

 and the fierce conflict between his passions and his reason might 

 be surmised from the inequality of his movements. At one moment 

 he was heard slowly striding from one end of the apartment to the 

 other, then he would stop, remain motionless for a minute, and re- 

 commence with a step as rapid as if he were leading his troops to a 

 victorious assault. 



The following morning, when Arnold entered the breakfast-room 

 where his wife and her sister were seated, his haggard countenance 

 and the disorder of his dress, about which he was ever neat almost to 

 foppishness, told that his night had been passed in any thing but 

 bodily or mental rest. His cheek was ghastly pale, but his eye burned 

 with unusual fire ; his wife turned upon him a look of inquiring mean- 

 ing he understood its import and replied to her mute interrogatory 

 in a voice to which a forced calmness gave a harsh grating tone : 



" Beatrice you are right my resolution is taken." 



His wife did not attempt to thank him by words, but, taking his 

 hand, pressed it to herlips and her heart. Her sister Mary a beauti- 

 ful girl of eighteen was a silent but not uninterested spectator of this 

 scene ; a flush of sudden joy overspread her fine features, and she was 

 forced to turn aside to hide the pleasurable emotions that agitated her." 

 From that moment Arnold became at heart a traitor. To explain 

 the causes that worked upon his already wavering principles and set 

 the seal to his perfidy we must take our readers back from the 

 regular train of the events that we are about relating. Before 

 the unhappy differences which separated for ever two countries 

 linked by more than common ties of friendship, when the too harshly 

 coerced child flung off the galling yoke of paternal tyranny, and 



