223
“Why, yes,—for this,” and she tossed them into the fire.
He looked at them as they withered in the blaze, then said, “Have you any objection to my carrying away the ashes, Miss Philipse?”
She answered, considerately, “’Twill take you more time than you can lose, to gather them up.”
“Oh, I am in no haste.”
“Oh, then, I ask your pardon. A moment since, you were about to go.”
“But now I prefer to stay.”
“Indeed? May I ask the reason—but no matter.”
But he felt that a reason ought to be forthcoming. “Why, you know, because—” And here he thought of one. “I wish to stay to meet Major Colden, of whom you say I am afraid. I shall prove to you at least I am no coward. After what you have said to me this night, I must in honor wait to face him.”
“But it is late now. I don’t think he will come till to-morrow.”
“Then I can wait till to-morrow.”
“But your duty calls you back to your own camp, now that your wound has healed.”
“I think my wound has undergone a slight relapse. You shall see, at least, I am not afraid of your champion.”
“If that is your only reason,—your desire to224quarrel with Major Colden,—I cannot invite you to remain.”
“Well, then, to tell the truth, thereisanother reason. When I said, a while since, I had never seen you in that gown, I used too many words. I should have said I had never really seen you at all.”
“Where were your eyes?” she asked, absently, seeming to take his words literally and to perceive no compliment.
“I was in a kind of waking sleep.”
“It has been a time and place of hallucinations, I think. I, too, sir, have been, since I came here a week ago, under the strangest spell. A kind of light madness or witchery was over me, and made me act ridiculously, against my very will. A week ago, when you were disabled, I intended to give you up to the British,—as I should do now, if it would not be so troublesome—”
“’Twould be troublesome tome, I assure you,” he said, interrupting.
“But at the last moment,” she went on, “I did precisely the reverse of what I wished. Awhile ago, in this room, I seemed to be in the possession of some evil spirit, which made me say preposterous things. I can only remember some wild raving I indulged in, and some undeserved rudeness I displayed towards you. But, will you believe, the instant you left me, I recovered my right mind. I am225like one returned from bedlam, cured, and you will pardon any incivility I may have done you in my peculiar state, I’m sure, since you speak of having been curiously afflicted yourself.”
“Then you mean,” he faltered, “you did not really love me?”
“Why, certainly I did not! How could you think I did? Something possessed my will. But, thank heaven, I am myself again. Why, sir, how could I? You know very little of me, sir, to think—Oh!” She covered her face with her hands. “What things must I have said and done, in my clouded state, to make you think that! You,—an enemy, a rebel, a person whose only possible interest to me arises from his enmity!”
Dazzled as he was by her newly discovered beauty, the imposition on him was complete. He saw this covetable being now indifferent to him, out of his power to possess, likely soon to pass into the possession of another.
“Pray try to forget awhile that enmity,” he supplicated.
“I shall try, and then you can have no interest for me at all.”
“Then don’t try, I beg. I’d rather have an interest for you as an enemy than not at all.”
“Why, really, sir—” She seemed half puzzled, half amused.
226
“Lord,” quoth he, “how I have been deluded! I thought my love-making that night, feigned though it was, had wakened a response.”
“Love-making, do you say? Will you believe me, sir, I don’t remember what passed here that night, save the unaccountable ending,—my making you my guest instead of their prisoner.”
“I wish you were pretending all this!”
“Why, if ’twould make you happier that I were, I wish so, too.”
“How can you speak so lightly of such matters?”
“What matters?”
“Love, of course.”
“Why, do men alone, because they laugh at women for taking love seriously, have the right to take it lightly? And of what love am I speaking lightly,—the love you say you feigned for me, or the love you say you thought you had awakened in me?”
“The love I vow I donotfeign for you! The love I wish Icouldawaken in you!”
“Why, captain, what a change has come over you!”
“Yes. I have risen from my sleep. If you, in waking from yours, put off love, I, in waking from mine, took on love!”
She smiled, as with amusement. “A somewhat speedy taking on, I should say.”
227
“Love’s born of a glance,Isay!”
“Haven’t I heard that before?” reflectively.
“Aye, for I said it here when I did not mean it, and now I say it again when I do!”
“And of what particular glance am I to suppose—”
“Of the first glance I cast on you when you entered this room in that gown. Yes, born of a glance—”
“Born of a gown, in that case, don’t you mean?” derisively.
“Of a gown, or a glance, or a what you wish.”
“I don’t wish it should be born at all.”
“You don’t wish I should love you?”
“I don’t wish you should love me or shouldn’t love me. I don’t wish you—anything. Why should I wish anything of one who is nothing to me?”
“Nothing to you! I would you were to me what I am to you!”
“What is that, pray?”
“An adorer!”
“You are a—very amusing gentleman.”
“You refuse me a glimpse of hope?”
“You would like to have it as a trophy, I suppose. You men treasure the memories of your little conquests over foolish women, as an Indian treasures the scalps he takes.”
228
“Lord! which sex, I wonder, has the busier scalping-knife?”
“I can’t speak for all my sex. Some of us seek no scalps—”
“You don’t have to. I make you a present of mine. I fling it at your feet.”
“We seek no scalps, I say,—because we don’t value them a finger-snap.” And she gave a specimen of the kind of finger-snap she did not value them at.
“In heaven’s name,” he said, “say what you do value, that I may strive to become like it! What do you value, I implore you, tell me?”
“Oh,—my studies, for one thing,—my French and my music,—”
“Could I but translate myself into French, or set myself to an air!”
“Nay, I don’t care forcomicsongs!”
“I see you like flowers. If I might die, and be buried in your garden, and grow up in the shape of a rose-bush—”
“Or a cabbage!”
“I fear you don’t like that flower.”
“Better come up in the form of your own Virginia tobacco.”
“And be smoked by old Mr. Valentine? No, you don’t like tobacco. Ah, Miss Philipse, this levity is far from the mood of my heart!”
229
“Why do you indulge in it, then?”
“I? Is it I who indulge in levity?”
“Assuredly,Ido not!” Oh, woman’s privilege of saying unabashedly the thing which is not!
“No,” said he, “for there’s no levity in the coldness with which beauty views the wounds it makes.”
“I’m sure one is not compelled to offer oneself to its wounds.”
“No,—nor the moth to seek the flame.”
“La, now you are a moth,—a moment ago, a rose-bush,—”
“And you are ten million roses, grown in the garden of heaven, and fashioned into one body there, by some celestial Praxiteles!”
“Dear me, am I all that?”
“Ay,” he said, sadly, “and no more truly conscious of what it means to be all that, than any rose in any garden is conscious of what its beauty means!”
“Perhaps,” she said, softly, feeling for a moment almost tenderness enough to abandon her purpose, “more conscious than you think!”
“Ah! Then you are not like common beauties,—as poor and dull within as they are rich and radiant without? You but pretend insensibility, to hide real feeling.”
“I did not say so,” she answered, lightly, bracing herself again to her resolution.
“But it is so, is it not?” he went on. “Your230heart and mind are as roseate and delicate as your face? You can understand my praises and my feelings? You can value such love as mine aright, and know ’tis worthy some repayment?”
But she was not again to be duped by low-spoken, fervid words, or by wistful, glowing eyes. She must be sure of him.
“I know,—I recall now,” she said, with little apparent interest; “you spoke of love a week ago, with no less eloquence and ardor.”
“More eloquence and ardor, I dare say, for then I did not feel love. Then my tongue was not tied by sense of a passion it could not hope to express one hundredth part of! And, even if my tongue had gift to tell my heart, I should not dare trust myself under the sway of my feelings. But Idolove you now,—I do,—I do!”
“If now, why not before?”
“Haven’t I said I’ve been blind to you until to-night? At first I regarded you as only an enemy to be turned to my use in my peril. Having been fortunate in that, I gave myself to other thoughts. But, thinking my false love had drawn true love from you, I saw I could not in honor leave you under a false belief. But now the falsehood has become truth. A week ago, I avowed a pretended passion, to gain my life! Now, I declare a real one, to gain your love!”
231
“What, you expect to take my love by storm, in reality, as you did, in appearance, a week ago?” She had risen from the music seat, and now stood with her back against the spinet, her hands behind her, her head turned slightly upward, facing him.
“I don’t expect,” said he. “I only hope.”
“And what gives you reason to hope?”
“My own love for you. Love elicits love, they say.”
“They say wrong, then. If that were true, there would be no unrequited lovers.”
“Ay, but such love as mine,—how can it so fill me to overflowing, and not infect you?”
“Love is not an infectious disease. If it were, I should have no fear,—knowing myself love-proof.”
“I can’t believe that,—for a woman with no spark in herself could not light so fierce a flame in me, by the mere meeting of our eyes.”
“If it should create in me such a disturbance as you seem to undergo, I shouldn’t wish it to increase. But, I assure you, it isn’t in me.”
“Pray think it is. Only imagine it is there, and soon it will be.”
She felt that the time was at hand to strike the blow.
“If I could be perfectly sure you spoke in earnest,” she said, seeming to search his countenance for testimony.
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“In earnest!” he echoed. “Great heavens, what evidence do you want? If there is an aspect of love I do not have, tell me, and I shall put it on.”
“Yes, you are experienced in putting on theaspectsof love.”
“Oh, you well know I have no reason now for declaring a love I don’t feel. If you could be sure I spoke in earnest, you said,—what then? Tell me, and I shall find a way to convince you Iamin earnest.”
“Convince me first.”
“‘Convince me,’ you say. And I say, ‘Be convinced.’ By the Lord, never was so great a sceptic! Is not your sense of your own charms sufficient to convince you of their effect?”
“Mere words!”
“I’ll prove my love by acts, then!”
“By what acts?”
“By fighting for you or suffering for you, dying for you or living for you, as you may command.”
“You can prove it thus. Say, ‘Long live the King!’”
He gazed at her a moment. “No,” he said.
“Say, ‘Long live the King!’” She went to the door, and paused on the threshold, looking at him, as if to give him a last opportunity.
“Long live the King—” he said.
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She came back from the door.
“Of France!” he added.
“No,” she cried, and dictated, “‘Long live the King of Great Britain!’”
“Long live the King of Great Britain,—but not of America.”
“No! ‘Long live George the Third, King of Great Britain and the American colonies!’”
“Long live George the Third, King of Great Britain and—Ireland.”
“‘And of the American colonies.’ Say it! Say it all!”
“Long live Elizabeth Philipse, queen of beauty in the United States of America!” he answered.
“You don’t love me,” said she, and set her mind to finding some other means by which he might evince what she knew he would never demonstrate in the way she had demanded. And she resolved his humiliation should be all the greater for the delay. “You don’t love me.”
“I do. I swear, on my knees.”
“Thengeton your knees!”
“I do!” He dropped on one knee.
“Both knees!”
“Both.” He suited action to word.
“Bow lower.”
“I touch the floor.” He did so, with his forehead. “Are you convinced?”
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“Yes.” And she moved thoughtfully towards the door of the east hall.
“Ah! Convinced that I love you madly?” In obedience to a gesture, he remained on his knees.
“Perfectly convinced.”
“Then, the reward of which you hinted?”
“Reward?”
“You said, if you could be sure I spoke in earnest. Now you admit you are sure. What then?”
She let her eyes rest on him a moment, without speaking, as he looked ardently and expectantly up at her from his kneeling attitude, while she took in breath, and then she flung her answer at him.
“What then? This! That you are now more contemptible and ridiculous and utterly non-existent, to me, than you have formerly been! That, whatever I may have done which seemed in your behalf, was partly from the strange insanity of which I have spoken, and partly from the most meaningless caprice! That, if you remain here till to-morrow, you may see me in the arms of the man I really love, and that he may not be as careless of the fate of a vagabond rebel as I am. And now, Captain Crayton, or Dayton, or Peyton, or whatever you please, of somebody or other’s light horse, go or stay, as you choose; you’re as welcome as any other casual passer-by, for all the comical figure your impudence has made you cut! Learn modesty, sir, and you235may fare better in your next love-making, if you do not aim too high! And that piece of advice is the reward I hinted at! Good night!”
And she whirled from the room, slamming behind her the mahogany door, at which Peyton stared for some seconds, in blank amazement, too overwhelmed to speak or move or breathe or think.
But gradually he came to life, slowly rose, stood for a moment thoughtful, fashioned his brows into a frown, drew his lips back hard, and muttered through his closed teeth:
“I’ll stay and fight that man, at least!”
And he sat down by the table, to wait.
236CHAPTER XII.THE CHALLENGE.
A veryfew moments had elapsed, and Peyton still sat by the table, in a dogged study, when the door from the south hall was opened slightly, and if he had looked he might have seen a pair of eyes peeping through the aperture. But he did not look, either then or when, some seconds later, the door opened wide and Miss Sally bobbed gracefully in.
It has been related how, after her brilliant but exhausting conduct of the important scene assigned her, she sought repose in her room. Looking out of her window presently, she saw something, of which she thought it advisable to inform Elizabeth. Therefore she came down-stairs. Did she listen at the door to the last part of that notable conversation? Ungallant thought, aroint thee! ’Tis well known women have little curiosity, and what little they have they would not, being of Miss Sally’s station in life, descend to gratify by eavesdropping. Let it be assumed, therefore, that the much vaunted informant, feminine intuition, told Miss Sally of the237end of the interview between her niece and the captain, both as to the time of that end and as to its nature.
She entered, tremulous with a vast idea that had blazed suddenly on her mind. Now that Elizabeth was quite through with Peyton, now that Peyton must be low in his self-esteem for Elizabeth’s humiliation of him, and therefore likely to be grateful for consolatory attentions, Miss Sally might resume her own hopes. But there was no time to be lost.
“Your pardon, captain,” she began, sweetly, with her most flattering smile. “I am looking for Miss Elizabeth.”
“She was here awhile ago,” replied Peyton, glumly, not bringing his eyes within range of the smile. “She went that way. I trust you’ve recovered from your attack.”
“My attack?” inquiringly, with surprise.
“The queer spell, I think Miss Philipse called it. She said you were subject to them.”
“Well, how does she dare—” She checked her tongue, lest she might betray the device for his detention. Something in his absent, careless way of associating her with a queer spell irritated her a little for the moment, and impelled her to retaliation. “I suppose that was not the only thing she said to you?” she added, ingenuously.
“No,—she said other things.” He rose and238went to the fireplace, leaned against the mantel, and gazed pensively at the red embers.
“They don’t seem to have left you very cheerful,” ventured Miss Sally.
“Not so very damned cheerful!—I beg your pardon.”
Miss Sally’s moment of resentment had passed. Now was the time to strike for herself. She thought she had hit on a clever plan of getting around to the matter.
“Captain,” said she, “you’re a man of the world. I know it’s presumptuous of me to ask it, but—if you would give me a word of advice—”
Peyton did not take his look from the fire, or his thoughts from their dismal absorption. He answered, half-unconsciously:
“Oh, certainly! Anything at all.”
“You are aware, of course,” she went on, with smirking, rosy confusion, “that Mr. Valentine is a widower.”
“Indeed? Oh, yes, yes, I know.”
“Yes, a widower twice over.”
“How sad! He must feel twice the usual amount of grief.”
“Why,—I don’t know exactly about that.”
“The poor man has my sympathy. Doubtless he is inconsolable.” Peyton scarce knew what he was saying, or whom it was about.
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“Why, no,” said Miss Sally, averting her eyes, with a smiling shyness, “not altogether inconsolable. That’s just it.”
“Oh, is it?” said Peyton, obliviously.
“You may have noticed that he spends a good deal of time here at present,” she went on.
“A good deal of time,” he repeated. “There’s doubtless some strong attraction.”
“Yes. Perhaps I oughtn’t to say it, but thereisa strong attraction. In fact, he has proposed marriage to me, and now, as a man of the world to a woman of little experience, would you advise me to accept him?”
And she looked at the disconsolate officer so sweetly, it seemed impossible he should do aught but say it would be throwing herself away to bestow on an old man charms of which younger and warmer eyes were sensible. But he answered only:
“Certainly! An excellent match!”
For a time Miss Sally was speechless, yet open-mouthed. And then, for the length of one brief but fiery tirade, she showed herself to be her niece’s aunt:
“Sir! The idea! I wouldn’t have that old smoke-chimney if he were the last man on earth! I’d have given him his congé long ago, if it hadn’t been that he might propose to my friend, the widow Babcock! I’ve only kept him on the string to prevent her getting him. When I want your advice,240Captain Peyton, I’ll ask for it! Excuse me, I must find Elizabeth. I’ve news for her.”
“News?” he echoed, stupidly.
“Yes. From my chamber window awhile ago I saw some one riding this way on the post-road,—Major Colden!”
And she swept out by the same door that had closed, a few minutes before, on Elizabeth.
“Major Colden!” Peyton’s teeth tightened, his eyes shot fire, his hand flew to his sword-hilt, as he spoke the name.
He went to the window, the same window at which Elizabeth had looked out a week ago, and peered through the panes at the night.
“Why, the ground is white,” he said. “It has begun to snow.”
But, through the large flakes that fell thick and swiftly among the trees, he did not yet see any humankind approaching. His view of the branch road was, at some places, obstructed by tall shrubbery that rose high above the palings and the hedge.
Yet through those flakes, assaulted by them in eyes and nostrils, invaded by them in ears and neck, humankind was riding. It was, indeed, Colden that Miss Sally had seen through a fortuitous opening, which gave, between the trees, a view of the most eminent point of the post-road southward. He was to conduct Elizabeth home the next day, but241had availed himself of his opportunity to ride out to the manor-house that night, so as to have the few more hours in her society. He had this time taken an escort of two privates of his own regiment, but these men were not as well mounted as he, and, in his impatience, having seen the best their horses could do, and having passed King’s Bridge, he had ridden ahead of them, leaving them to follow to the manor-house in their own speediest time. Thus it was that now he bore alone down from the post-road, his horse’s feet making on the new-fallen snow no other sound than a soft crunching, scarce louder than its heavy breathing or its mouth-play on the bit, or the creak and clank of saddle, bridle, stirrups, pistols, and scabbard. His eyes dwelt eagerly on the manor-house, where awaited him light and warmth and wine, refuge from the pelting flakes, and, above all else, the joy-giving presence of Elizabeth. His breast expanded, he sighed already with relief; he approached the gate as a released soul, with admission ticket duly purchased by a deathbed repentance, might approach the gate of heaven.
But Peyton, looking out on the white world, saw no one. He did not change his attitude when the door reopened and Elizabeth and her aunt came into the parlor, arm in arm.
“You’re sure ’twas he, aunt Sally?” Elizabeth had been saying.
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“Positive. He should be here now,” Miss Sally had replied.
Elizabeth cast a look of secret elation on the unheeding rebel captain, whose forehead was still against the window-pane. She saw a possible means of his still further degradation.
Suddenly he took a quick step back from the window, impulsively renewed his grasp of his sword-hilt, and showed a face of resolute antagonism.
Elizabeth knew from this that he had seen Colden. She gave a smile of pleasant anticipation.
But Miss Sally had relapsed into her usual timid self. She held tightly to Elizabeth’s arm.
“Oh, dear!” she whispered. “Won’t something happen when those two meet?”
“I hope so!” said Elizabeth, placidly.
“Why?” demanded Miss Sally, beginning to weaken at the knees.
“If Colden sends him to the ground, in our presence, that will crown the fellow’s humiliation.”
Five brisk knocks, in quick succession, were heard from the outside door of the east hall.
Peyton walked across the parlor, turned, and stood facing the east hall door, the greater part of the room’s length being between him and it. His hand remained on his sword. He paid no heed to Elizabeth, she paid none to him.
“His knock!” she said, and called out through243the east hall door: “’Tis Major Colden, Sam. Show him here at once.” She then stepped back from the door, to a place whence she could see both it and Peyton. Her aunt clung to her arm all the while, and now whispered, “Oh, Elizabeth, I fear there will be trouble!”
“If there is, it won’t fall on your silly head,” whispered Elizabeth, in reply.
From the hall came the sound of the drawing of bolts. Peyton did not take his eyes from the door.
A noise of footfalls, accompanied by clank of spurs and weapons, and in came Colden, his hat in his left hand, snow on his hat and shoulders, his cloak open, his sword and pistols visible, his right hand ungloved to clasp Elizabeth’s.
She received him with such a cordial smile as he had never before had from her.
“Elizabeth!” he cried,—beheld only her, hastened to her, took her proffered hand, bent his head and kissed the fingers, raised his eyes with a grateful, joyous smile,—and saw Peyton standing motionless at the other side of the room. The smile vanished; a look of amazement and hatred came.
“I wish you a very good evening,MajorColden!”
Peyton said this in a voice as hard and ironical as might have come from a brass statue.
For the next few seconds the two men stood244gazing at each other, the women gazing at the men. At last the Tory major found speech:
“Elizabeth,—what does it mean? Why is this man here,—again?”
“’Tis rather a long story, Jack, and you shall hear it all in time,” said Elizabeth, determined he should never hear the true story.
Before she could continue, Colden suffered a start of alarm to possess him, and asked, quickly:
“Are any of his troops here?”
“No; he is quite alone,” she answered.
Colden at once took on height, arrogance, and formidableness.
“Then why have not your servants made him a prisoner?” he asked.
“Why,” said she, “you being mentioned to-night, in his presence, he made some kind of boast of not fearing you, and I, divining how soon you would be here, thought fit his freedom with your name should best be paid for atyourhands, major.”
“Ay, major,” put in Peyton, “and I have stayed to receive payment!”
Colden thought for a short while. Then he said, “A moment, Elizabeth. Your pardon, Miss Williams,” and drew Elizabeth aside, and spoke to her in a low tone: “We have only to temporize with him. Two of my men have attended me from my quarters. I had a better horse, and rode ahead, in245my eagerness to see you. My two fellows will be here soon, and the business will be done.”
But such doing of the business did not suit Elizabeth’s purpose. “I wish to humiliate the man,” she answered Colden, inaudibly to the others; “to take down his upstart pride! ’Twould be no shame to him, to be made prisoner by numbers.”
“What, then?” asked Colden, dubiously.
“Bring down the coxcomb, before us women, in an even match!”
To prevent objections, she then abruptly went from Colden, and resumed her place at her aunt’s side.
Colden stood frowning, not half pleased at her hint. It occurred to him, as it did not to her, that the mere allegiance and favoring wishes of herself were not sufficient possessions to ensure victory in such a match as she meant. Elizabeth, accustomed to success, did not conceive it possible that the chosen agent of her own designs could fail. But the chosen agent had, in this case, wider powers of conception.
All this time, Captain Peyton had stood as motionless as a figure in a painting. He now interrupted Colden’s meditations with the gentle reminder:
“I am waiting for my payment, Major Colden.”
Colden was not a man of much originality. So,246in his instinctive endeavor to gain time, he bungled out the conventional reply, “You wish to seek a quarrel with me, sir?”
“Seek a quarrel?” retorted Peyton. “Is not the quarrel here? Has not Miss Philipse spoken of an offence to your name, for which I ought to receive payment from you? Gad, she’d not have to speak twice to makemedraw!”
Colden continued to be as conventional as a virtuous hero of a novel. “I do not fight in the presence of ladies, sir,” said he.
“Nor I,” said Peyton. “Choose your own place, in the garden yonder. With snow on the ground, there’s light enough.”
And Harry went quickly, almost to the door, near which he stopped to give Colden precedence.
“Nay,” put in Elizabeth, “we ladies can bear the sight of a sword-cut or two. Wait for us,” and she would have gone to send for wraps, but that Colden raised his hand in token of refusal, saying:
“Nay, Elizabeth. I will not consent.”
“Come, sir,” said Peyton. “’Tis no use to oppose a lady’s whim. But if you make haste, we may have it over before they can arrive on the ground.”
In handling his sword-hilt, Peyton had pulled the weapon a few inches out of the scabbard, and now, though he did not intend to draw while in the house,247he unconsciously brought out the full length of what remained of the blade. For the time he had forgotten the sword was broken, and now he was reminded of it with some inward irritation.
Meanwhile Colden was answering:
“There’s no regularity in such a meeting. Where are the seconds?”
“I’ll be your second, major,” cried Elizabeth. “Aunt Sally, second Captain Peyton.”
“Ridiculous!” said the major.
“Anything to bring you out,” said Peyton, as desirous of avenging himself on Elizabeth, through her affianced, as she was to complete her own revenge through the same instrument. “I’ll fight you with half a sword. I’d forgotten ’tis all I’ve left.”
“I would not take an advantage,” said the New Yorker.
“Then break your own sword, and make us equal,” said the Virginian.
“I value my weapon too much for that.”
Peyton smiled ironically. But he tried again.
“Then I shall be less scrupulous,” said he. “Iwilltake an advantage. The greater honor to you, if you defeat me. You take the broken sword, and lend me yours.”
He held out his hilt for exchange.
Colden pretended to laugh, saying:
248
“Am I a fool to put it in your power to murder me?”
“I’lltell you what, gentlemen,” put in Elizabeth. “Use the swords above the chimney-place, yonder. They are equal.”
“Yes!” cried Peyton.
But Colden said:
“I will not so degrade myself as to cross swords, except on the battle-field, with one who is a rebel, a deserter, and no gentleman.”
Peyton turned to Elizabeth with a smile.
“Then you see, madam,” said he, “’tis no fault of mine if my affronts go unpunished, since this gentleman must keep his courage for the battle-field! Egad,” he added, sacrificing truth for the sake of the taunt, “you Tories need all the courage there you can save up in a long time! I take my leave of this house!”
“‘I TAKE MY LEAVE OF THIS HOUSE!’”
“‘I TAKE MY LEAVE OF THIS HOUSE!’”
He thrust his sword back into the scabbard, bowed rapidly and low, with a flourish of his hat, and went out by the same door Elizabeth had used in her own moment of triumph. He unbolted the outside door himself, before black Sam could come from the settle to serve him. Snowflakes rushed in at the open door. He plunged into them, swinging the door close after him. Out through the little portico he went, down the walk outside the very parlor window through which he had looked out awhile ago,249but through which he did not now look in as he passed; through the gate, and up the branch road to the highway. He was possessed by a confusion of thoughts and feelings,—temporary and superficial elation at having put Elizabeth’s preferred lover in so bad a light, wild ideas of some future crossing of her path, swift dreams of a future conquest of her in spite of all, a fierce desire for such action as would lead to that end. He was eager to rejoin the army now, to participate in the fighting that would bring about the humbling of her cause and make it the more in his power to master her. He heeded little the snow that impeded his steps as his boots sank into it, and which, in falling, blinded his eyes, tickled his face, and clung to his hair. The tumult of flakes was akin to that of his feelings, and he was in mood for encountering such opposition as the storm made to his progress.
Arriving at the post-road, he turned and went northward. At his left lay the great lawn fronting the manor-house, and separated from the road by hedge and palings. He could see, across the snowy expanse, between the dark trunks and whitened branches of the trees, the long front of the manor-house, its roof and its porticoes already covered with snow, the light glowing in the one exposed window of the east parlor. As he quieted down within, he felt pleasantly towards the house, to which his week’s250half-solitary residence in it, with the comfort he had enjoyed there and the books he had read, had given him an attachment. He cast on it a last affectionate look, then breasted the weather onward, wondering what things the future might have in store for him.
He had little fear of not reaching the American lines in safety. It was unlikely that any of the enemy’s marauders would be out on such a night, and more unlikely that any regular military movement would be making on the neutral ground. He expected to meet no one on the road, but he would keep a sharp lookout in all directions as he went, and, in case of any human apparition, would take to the fields or the woods. But all the world, thought he, would stay within doors this white night.
Sliding back a part of every step he took in the snow, he passed the boundary of the Philipse lawn, and that of such part of the grounds as included, with other appurtenances, the garden north of the house. He had come, at last, to a place where the fence at his left ended and the forest began. He had, a moment before, cast a long look backward to assure himself the road was empty behind him. He now trudged on, his eyes fixed ahead.
From behind a low pine-tree, at the end of the fence, two dark figures glided up to the captain’s rear, their steps noiseless in the snow. One of them251caught both his forearms at the same instant, and pulled them back together, as with grips of iron. A second pair of hands placed a noose about his wrists, and quickly tightened it. Ere he could turn, his first assailant released the bound arms to the second, drew a pistol, and thrust the muzzle close to Peyton’s cheek, whereupon the second man said:
“Your pardon, captain. Come quietly, or you’re a dead man!”
252CHAPTER XIII.THE UNEXPECTED.
Peyton’ssomewhat elate exit from the parlor was followed by a moment of silence and inertia on the part of the three who remained there. But Elizabeth’s chagrin was speedily translated into anger against Major Colden.
“Why didn’t you fight him?” she demanded of that gentleman, who was flinching inwardly, but who maintained a pale and haughty exterior.
“What was the use?” he replied. “He’s reserved for the gallows. If my two men were here! Why not send your servants after him? Sam is a powerful fellow, and Williams is shrewd and strong.”
Elizabeth ignored Colden’s reply, and answered her own question, thus:
“It was because you remembered the time he disarmed you, three years ago.”
“You may think so, if you choose,” he replied, in the patient manner of one who quietly endures unjust reproaches when self-defence is useless.
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“You will find refreshments in the dining-room,” said Elizabeth, coldly. “Sam will show you to your room.”
“I would rather remain with you,” he replied.
“I would rather be alone with my aunt a while.”
A deep sigh expressed his dejecting sense of how futile it would be to oppose her.
“As you will,” he then said, and, bowing gravely, left the parlor.
Elizabeth’s feelings now burst out.
“Oh,” she exclaimed to her aunt, “what a chicken-hearted copy of a man! And he calls himself a soldier! I wonder where he found the spirit to volunteer!”
“From you, my dear,” replied Miss Sally. “Didn’t you urge him to take a commission?”
“And that rebel fellow had the best of it all through,” Elizabeth went on. “I was to see him laid low by his rival, as my crowning revenge! How he swaggered out! with what a look of triumph in his eye! And—aunt Sally! He won’t come back! I shall never see him again!”
“Why, child, do you wish to?”
“Of course not! But I can’t have him go away with the laugh on his side! He made me ridiculous after my trying to stab him with my love for the other man.Suchanother man! Oh, the rebel must come back!”
254
“But he isn’t likely to,” said Miss Sally.
“Oh, what shall I do?” wailed the niece.
“Elizabeth, I’ll wager you’re still in love with him!”
“I’m not! I hate him!—Well, what if I am? He loved me, I’m sure, the last time he said it. But, good heavens, he’s going farther away every instant!”
She clasped her hands, and, for once, looked at her aunt for help, like a distressed child on the verge of weeping.
“Why don’t you call him back?” said Miss Sally.
“I? Not if I die for want of seeing him!—I know! Iwillsend the servants after him.” And she started for the door, but stopped at her aunt’s comment:
“But that will be as bad as calling him yourself.”
“Not at all, you empty pate!” cried Elizabeth, who had become, in a moment, all action. “While he’s going around by the road, Williams and Sam shall cut across the garden, lie in wait, and take him by surprise. He has no weapon but a broken sword, and they can make him prisoner. They shall bring him back here bound, and he’ll think he’s to be turned over to the British after all!”
“But what then?”
“Why, he shall be left alone here, well guarded, for255half an hour, and then I’ll happen in, give him an opportunity to make love again, and I can yield gracefully! Don’t you see?”
“Then youdolove him?” said the aunt.
“I don’t know. However, I don’t love Jack Colden. Not a word to him, of this! I’m going to give orders to the men.”
As she entered the hall, she met Colden, who was coming from the dining-room with Mr. Valentine. The major had limited his refreshments to two glasses of brandy and water, swallowed in quick succession. Mr. Valentine, who was smoking his pipe, held Colden fraternally by the arm.
“What, Elizabeth, are you still angry?” said Colden, stopping as she passed.
“Excuse me, I have something to see to,” said the girl, coolly, hurrying away from him.
He made a slight movement to follow her, but old Valentine drew him into the parlor, saying:
“Come, major, you’ll see the lady enough after she’s married to you. I was just going to say, the last lot of tobacco I got—”
“Oh, damn your tobacco!” said the other, jerking his arm from the old man’s tremulous grasp.
“Damn my tobacco?” echoed Mr. Valentine, quite stupefied.
“Yes. I’ve matters more important on my mind just now.”