Part 53 (2/2)
”You!”
”Just me, and no other,” he affirmed. ”Didn't I hold on to those instructions while that Yankee spy was trying to send me to--heaven?
And if that was not helping the cause and risking my life, well now, what would you call it?”
”Oh!” gasped Evilena, delightedly, ”I never thought of that. Why, you were a real hero after all. I'm so glad, I--”
Then realizing that her exuberance was little short of caressing, and that she actually had both hands on his arm, she drew back and added demurely that she would always keep those roses, and she would like to keep the guitar, too, just as it was, for her mama agreed that it was a real romance of a serenade--the serenade that was not sung.
After which, he a.s.sured her, the serenades under her window should not always be silent ones, and they went in search of the broken guitar.
Judge Clarkson was pacing the veranda with well concealed impatience.
Colonel McVeigh's ride had interfered with the business talk he had planned. Matthew Loring was decidedly irritable over it, and he, Clarkson, was the one who, with Gertrude, had to hear the complaints.
But looking in Kenneth's happy face he could not begrudge him those brief morning hours at Beauty's side, and only asked his consideration for the papers at the earliest convenient moment, and at the same time asked if the cottage was really a safe place for so important a prisoner as Monroe.
”Perfectly safe,” decided McVeigh, ”so safe that there is no danger of escape; and as I think over the whole affair I doubt if on trial anything in this world can save him.”
”Well, I should hate to take his chances in the next,” declared the Judge; ”it seems so incredible that a man possessed of the courage, the admirable attributes you have always ascribed to him, should prove so unworthy--a broken parole. Why, sir, it is--is d.a.m.nable, sir, d.a.m.nable!”
Colonel McVeigh agreed, and Clarkson left the room without perceiving that Madame Caron had been a listener, but she came in, removing her gloves and looking at the tiny band of gold on her third finger.
”The Judge referred to Captain Monroe, did he not?” she asked, glancing up at him. ”Kenneth”--and her manner was delightfully appealing as she spoke his name in a shy little whisper, ”Kenneth, there may be some horrible mistake. Your friend--that was--may be innocent.”
”Scarcely a chance of it, sweetheart,” and he removed her other glove and kissed her fingers, glancing around first, to see that no one was in sight.
She laughed at his little picture of nervousness, but returned to the subject.
”But if it were so?” she persisted; ”surely you will not counsel haste in deciding so serious a matter?”
”At any rate, I mean to put aside so serious a subject of conversation on our wedding morning,” he answered, and she smiled back at him as she said:
”On our wedding morning, sir, you should be mercifully disposed towards all men.”
”We never cla.s.s traitors as men,” and his fine face grew stern for an instant, ”they are vampires, birds of prey. A detail has been sent for to take him to court-martial; there is little doubt what the result will be, and--”
”Suppose,” and she glanced up at him with a pretty appeal in her eyes, ”that your wife, sir, should ask as a first favor on her wedding day that you be merciful, as the rules of war allow you to be, to this poor fellow who danced with us last night? Even supposing he is most horribly wicked, yet he really did dance with us--danced very well, and was very amusing. So, why not grant him another day of grace? No?”
as he shook his head. ”Well, Monsieur, I have a fancy ill luck must come if you celebrate our wedding day by hastening a man to meet his death. Let him remain here under guard until tomorrow?”
He shook his head, smilingly.
”No, Judithe.”
”Not even for me?”
”Anything else, sweetheart, but not that. It is really out of my power to delay, now, even if I wished. The guard will come for him some time this evening. I, myself, shall leave at dawn tomorrow; so, you see!--”
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