“Yes, yes!” she gasped, with a suffocating sob.
“On the day of the festival, and of the landing of the British upon our island, you passed several hours alone with this person in the woods?”
A deprecating wave of the hand and another sob was her only reply.
“Once, at least, you received this man in your private apartment at Buzzard’s Bluff?”
A gesture of affirmation and of utter despondency was her answer.
“The night of that same visit, you secretly left the room of your protectors for an unexplained absence of several days, some of which were passed in the company of this person?”
For all reply, she raised and clasped her hands and dropped them down before her, and let her head fall upon her bosom with an action full of irremediable despair.
Her father’s face was dark with anguish.
“Speak, minion!” he said, “these things must not be left to conjecture; they must be clearly understood. Speak! answer!”
“I did,” she moaned, in an expiring voice, as her head sank lower upon her breast, and her form cowered under the weight of an overwhelming shame and sorrow.