“Oh, my dear, it is this. Though I have done only my duty—a most painful duty to me—I feel like an informer and a spy. Oh, Elfie, this awful war, that upsets not only all material but all moral life!” wept Erminie.
“Heaven bless your tender conscience! You seem to me to have done your duty by everybody. You didn’t invite the guerrilla’s wife to your house. She walked in upon you, told you that she had taken the oath of allegiance, and you received her kindly and treated her well. She left you under such suspicious circumstances—I know they must have been suspicious, else you would have had nothing to tell the Provost Marshal—that your pastor, on hearing of it, insisted that you should lodge information in the proper quarters, and actually took you off to do it. So why you should reproach yourself I don’t know.—Yes, Catherine, tea immediately.”
This last to the parlor maid who answered the bell.
Tea was soon served.
“And now I hope you will try to eat a little. Lord knows, between the saints and the sinners, you can scarcely call your body or soul your own,” said Elfie, as she sat down and began to wait on Erminie—pouring our her tea and placing the wing and breast of the broiled chicken on her plate.
“Thanks, Elfie; but help yourself, my dearest,” urged Erminie.
“Oh, I can’t eat. I had my dinner so late and ate then so heartily, having fasted so long, that I can’t touch a morsel now. I will have a cup of tea, however,” said Elfie.
“Britomarte has not been here this afternoon?” inquired Erminie.
“No.”
“I am very uneasy about her.”