“What should I care who knows?” cried she. “It is my heart's funeral! My heart is dead and we go upon its funeral in this snow!”
At that, without well heeding what I was about, and doubtless drawn to it by the note of woe in Peg's tones, I held her to my side even more closely than before. Thus we remained for a long space in utter silence, neither speaking a word, while the quiet storm stole down upon us and the slow wheels forced their passage through the white cold levels of the snow.
After a bit, Peg's head, curls in a tangle and hood removed, was thrust outside my cloak, which garment, however, she would continue to wrap about her and hold with her hand.
“I would still be near to you,” she said, as though in explanation of the cloak, “though I am no longer cold.”
The mere truth was, the night, while a choke and smother of snow, was nothing chill, being bare freezing for a temperature and never a breath of air to stir, and the inside of the big carriage as warm as many a library. And yet, when I would first get in, I found Peg shivering as with an ague. That was gone now and she more in control.
Peg would now be more mistress of herself and speak with a measure of firmness.
“You have heard?” she asked.
“The General,” I returned, “has told me you are to go to Florida. But how should you have been told? Or was it known to you for long?”
This latter I put a little viciously, for it struck me on the moment how Peg might have been aware of this new destiny for days, and hidden it from me. But no; she had come to her information but an hour before. Even while the General with his hand on my rebellious shoulder gave me the story of it, the letter which told the news to Peg was put within her hands.
“It was to have been a secret,” said she, “and my husband would have kept it until his return. But he will be detained beyond his plans; he wrote me because of preparations I must make.”