“Fraud!” cried his son quickly. “Surely, sir, you forget that Major André was serving his king, and that the usages of war justified the measure.”
“And did not the usages of war justify his death, Henry?” inquired Frances, speaking in a low voice, unwilling to abandon what she thought the cause of her country, and yet unable to suppress her feelings for the man.
“Never!” exclaimed the young man, springing from his seat, and pacing the floor rapidly. “Frances, you shock me; suppose it should be my fate, even now, to fall into the power of the rebels; you would vindicate my execution—perhaps exult in the cruelty of Washington.”
“Henry!” said Frances, solemnly, quivering with emotion, and with a face pale as death, “you little know my heart.”
“Pardon me, my sister—my little Fanny,” cried the repentant youth, pressing her to his bosom, and kissing off the tears which had burst, spite of her resolution, from her eyes.
“It is very foolish to regard your hasty words, I know,” said Frances, extricating herself from his arms, and raising her yet humid eyes to his face with a smile; “but reproach from those we love is most severe, Henry; particularly—where we—we think—we know”—her paleness gradually gave place to the color of the rose, as she concluded in a low voice, with her eyes directed to the carpet, “we are undeserving of it.”
Miss Peyton moved from her own seat to the one next her niece, and, kindly taking her hand, observed, “You should not suffer the impetuosity of your brother to affect you so much; boys, you know, are proverbially ungovernable.”
“And, from my conduct, you might add cruel,” said the captain, seating himself on the other side of his sister. “But on the subject of the death of André we are all of us uncommonly sensitive. You did not know him: he was all that was brave—that was accomplished—that was estimable.” Frances smiled faintly, and shook her head, but made no reply. Her brother, observing the marks of incredulity in her countenance, continued, “You doubt it, and justify his death?”
“I do not doubt his worth,” replied the maid, mildly, “nor his being deserving of a more happy fate; but I cannot doubt the propriety of Washington’s conduct. I know but little of the customs of war, and wish to know less; but with what hopes of success could the Americans contend, if they yielded all the principles which long usage had established, to the exclusive purposes of the British?”
“Why contend at all?” cried Sarah, impatiently. “Besides, being rebels, all their acts are illegal.”