"I reached the town yesterday. I had not the courage to come, and was very tired with my journey, so I went to Mrs. Grayson's, on Second Street. I knew her during Howe's winter; some of our officers were there."
"'Our.' Oh, Phil! now that all is over I want to hear you say 'my country.' For it is your birthplace. There must be no mine or thine."
"I am a poor wretch without a country, Primrose," he said falteringly.
"Nay, nay! You must have a share in your father's country. I shall not let you go back to England."
"I have thought the best place to go would be one's grave. Everything has failed. Friends are dead or strayed away. The cause is lost. For I know now no armies can make a stand against such men as these patriots. And if I had never gone across the sea, I suppose I should be one of them. But it is ill coming in at the eleventh hour, when you have lost all and must beg charity."
"But we have abundant charity and love."
"You are on the winning side."
Her beautiful, tender eyes smiled on him, and the tremulous lips tried not to follow, but she was proud of it, her country's side.
"Oh, forgive me!" she cried in a burst of pity.
"Nay, Primrose, I am not so much of a coward but that I can stand being beaten and endure the stigma of a lost cause—an unjust cause, we shall have to admit sooner or later. But I seem to have been shilly-shallying, a sort of gold-lace soldier, and the only time I was ever roused—oh, Primrose! believe that I did not know who I should attack until it was too late."