"You are hard to please, my lady."
"You have not to try to please me, sir. I am going away—to-night."
"Going away?" I echoed. "Whither, if I may ask?"
"My father has taken protection and we shall go south with the army. As Lord Cornwallis says, Mecklenburg is a hornets' nest of rebellion, and in an hour or two after we are gone you will be amongst your friends."
She made to leave me now, but I would not let her go without trying the last blunt-pointed arrow in the quiver of expedients.
"Stay a moment," I begged. "You are leaving the untangling of this coil you speak of to a chance bullet on a battle-field. Had you ever thought that the Church can undo what the Church has done?"
Again I had that bitter laugh which was to rankle afterward in memory.
"You are a most desperate, pertinacious man, Captain Ireton. Failing all else, you would even storm Heaven itself to gain your end," she scoffed; then, at the very pitch-point of the scornful outburst she put her face in her hands and fell a-sobbing as if her heart would break.
I knew not what to say or do, and ended, man-like, by saying and doing nothing. And so, still crying softly, she let herself out at the wainscot door, and this was our leave-taking.