"Surely not! Should I be here now if I had been there then, madam?" he replied proudly.
"True, true! you at least are a gentleman. Forgive the question."
"General Mercer and some of his officers sprang at the line. I had it from his own lips. Some one cut the general down; Hilary interposed, and enabled him to rise to his feet; they were attacked, fought bravely until—until—they died."
Stricken to the death at least, but determined to die as the rest had died, fighting, she drew herself up resolutely, and lifted her hand to that pitiless heaven above her. "So—be—it—unto—all—the—enemies—" When had he heard her say that before, he wondered in horror. She stopped, her face went whiter before him, the light went out of it.
"Oh, my son, my son—O God, my son, my son—Oh, give him back, my son—my son!" She reeled and fell against him, moaning and beating the air with her little feeble hands. The break had come at last; she was no longer a Talbot, but a woman. With infinite pity and infinite care he half led, half carried her into the house, and then, after being bidden not to summon assistance, he sank down on his knees by her side, where she lay on the sofa in the parlor, crushed, broken, feeble, helpless, old. With many interruptions he told her the sad story. He laid the long dark lock of hair he had cut from her son's head in her hand. There was a letter from George Washington which he read to her, in which, after many tender words of consolation, he spoke of Talbot as "one who would have done honor to any country." He told her of that military funeral, the kind words of Cornwallis, the guard of honor, the soldiers of the king, and then he put Talbot's own letter to him before her, and she must be told of the loss of the frigate. Kate dead too, and Colonel Wilton. Alas, poor friends! But all her plans and hopes were gone; what mattered it—what mattered anything now!
"Oh, what a load must those unrighteous men bear before God who have inaugurated this wicked war!" she cried; but no echo of her reproach was heard in the houses of Parliament in London, or whispered in the antechamber of the king, to whom, assuredly, they belonged.
And by and by he left her. It wrung his heart so to do, but the call of duty was stronger than her need. His ship was ready, or would be in a short time, and he had snatched a few days from his pressing work to fulfil this task. His presence was absolutely necessary on the vessel, and he must go. Saying nay to her piteous plea that he should stay, and most reluctantly refusing her proffers of hospitality, after leaving with her the letters and the pictures, he left the room. But in the doorway he looked back at her. The tears had come at last. Moved by a sudden impulse, he ran back and knelt down by her, and took her old face between his hands and kissed her.
"Good-by, dear madam," he whispered; "would it had been I!"
She laid her thin hands upon his head.
"Good-by," she whispered; "God bless you. Oh, my boy—my boy!" She turned her face to the wall in bitterness, and so he fled.