Part 22 (1/2)
He is unwise to trust you so far--you have told me enough to--”
”There's no more need of secrecy. Captain Falconer's men are well on their way to Morristown. Even if you got out of our lines as easily as you got in, you could only meet our troops returning with your general.”
Doubtless she conceived that by taunting him, at this safe hour, with this prevision of her success, she helped the estrangement which she felt necessary to her enjoyment of her expected rewards.
”Oho!” quoth he, with a bitter, derisive laugh. ”Another attempt to seize Was.h.i.+ngton! What folly!”
”Not when we are helped by treason in your camp, as I said before.
Folly, is it? You'll sing another song to-morrow!”
She smiled with antic.i.p.ated triumph, and the smile had in it so much of the Madge of other days, that his bitterness forsook him, and admiration and love returned to sharpen his grief.
”Oh, Madge, dear, could I but win you back!” he murmured, wistfully.
”What, in that strain again!” she said, petulant at each revival of the self-reproach his sorrow caused in her.
”Ay, if I had but the chance! If I might be with you long enough, if I might reawaken the old tenderness!--But I forget; treason in our camp, you say. There is danger, then--ay, there's always the possibility.
The devil's in it, that I must tear myself from you now; that I must part with you while matters are so wrong between us; that I must leave you when I would give ten years of life for one hour to win your love back! But you will take my hand, let me kiss you once--you will do that for the sake of the old times--and then I will be gone!”
”Be gone? Where?”
”Back to camp, of course, to give warning of this expedition.”
”'Tis impossible! Tis hours--”
”'Tis not impossible--I will outride them. They wouldn't have started before dark.”
”You would only overtake them, at your best. Do you think they would let you pa.s.s?”
”Poh! I know every road. I can ride around them. I'll put the army in readiness for 'em, treason or no treason! For the present, good-bye--”
The look in his face--of power and resolution--gave her a sudden sense of her triumph slipping out of her grasp.
”You must not go!” she cried, quite awakened to the peril of the situation to her enterprise.
”I must! Good-bye! One kiss, I beg!”
”But you sha'n't go!” As he came close to her, she clasped him tightly with both arms. She made no attempt to avoid his kiss, and he, taking this for acquiescence, bestowed the kiss upon unresponsive lips.
”Now let me go,” said he, turning to stride toward the door by which he had entered from the rear chamber.
”No, no! Stay. Time to win back my love, you said. Take the time now.
You may find me not so difficult of winning back. Nay, I have never ceased to love you, at the bottom of my heart. I love you now. You shall stay.”
”I must not, I dare not. Oh, I would to G.o.d I could believe you! But whether 'tis true, or a device to keep me here, I will not stay. Let me go!”
”I will not! You will have to force me from you, first! I tell you I love you--my husband!”