I fear she must have seen my inward smile this time, for she broke off in the midst, and I made haste to forestall her flying out at me.
"Oh, come, my dear; you should not be so fierce with him when you yourself have brought a rebel to his house to nurse alive."
She looked me fairly in the eye. "You should be the last to remind me of my treason, Monsieur John."
"Then you are free to call it treason, are you, Margery?" I said.
She looked away from me again. "How can it well be less than treason?" Then suddenly she turned and clasped her hands upon my knee. "You must not be too hard upon me, Monsieur John. I've tried to do my duty as I saw it, and I have asked no questions. And yet I know much more than you have told me."
"What do you know?"
"I know your wound has been your safety. If you should leave this room and house to-day you would never wear the buff and blue again, Captain Ireton."
"You mean they would hang me for a spy. Will you believe me, Margery, if I say I have not yet worn the buff and blue at all?"
"Oh!" The little exclamation was of pure delight. "Then they were all mistaken? You are no rebel, after all?"
Was ever man so tempted since the fall of Adam? As I have writ it down for you in measured words, I was no more than half a patriot at this time. And love has made more traitors than its opposites of lust or greed. In no uncertain sense I was a man without a country; and this fair maiden on the hassock at my feet was all the world to me. I saw in briefer time than any clock hands ever measured how much a yielding word might do for me; and then I thought of Richard Jennifer and was myself again.