At this moment Lutie reappeared with the message: “Miss Letty, Miss Betty say is yuh able to come down to supper? Mr. Bald’in, he comin’, an’ she say she wisht yuo’d mek yose’f ready, is yuh able.”
“I am able, but some one will have to help me to hobble. Go tell Miss Betty, and then come back and dress me.” She felt a little flutter of excitement at again meeting the companion of her late adventures, and selected her dress with some care. Yet she sighed once or twice. She had been very unjust to Robert, and of course he could never forgive her. Yes, it was as he had said; that dream was over. Nevertheless, she had a little feeling of resentment toward him because he had not assured her of his innocence. “If he had not reproached me, but had told me, I would have believed him,” she told herself. She had been too hasty, she admitted, but like many other persons, she did not feel willing to exculpate the supposed offender from all blame and to acknowledge herself in the wrong, and her feeling of resentment in consequence almost overcame her regrets.
CHAPTER XIV.
“Sorrow an’ Trouble.”
The two who had lately been companions in misery met each other, at the supper table, for the first time since the evening of their perilous experience. “This is but our third meeting,” said Mr. Baldwin, “and how various the circumstances.”
“There is a mighty big difference between a ball-room, Aunt Hagar’s cabin, and our present surroundings,” Lettice returned. “We cannot complain of monotony. How are you, Mr. Baldwin? Mammy tells me your fever ran high, and no wonder; I have felt like a rag, myself.”
“Thanks to good nursing I am much better, and shall be able to proceed to Washington to-morrow, I trust.”
“You are not well enough,” Mrs. Betty protested. “We cannot let you go when you are but half mended.”
“Ah, but there is no word but duty to those who have promised to serve their country,” replied the young man.
“Yes, but one owes a duty to one’s self as well as to one’s country,” Betty returned.