"No! I could not begin to think."
"Are you not happy?"
"Happiness springs not from a large fortune, and is often obtained when often unexpected. It is neither within us nor without us and only evident to us by the deliverance from evil."
He glanced sharply. There was fire in his eye.
"I know of what you are thinking. You are disturbed by these persistent rumors about me."
She gave a little laugh, a chuckle, in a hopeless manner.
"Yes, I am. Go on." She answered mechanically and fell back in her chair.
"You need not be disturbed. They are groundless, I tell you. Simply engendered by spite. And I blame partly the Papist Whigs. Damn 'em."
"It isn't that alone."
"That is some of it. The origin of the hostility to me was the closing of the shops for a week under an order direct from Washington himself, and a resolution of the Congress. Yet I was blamed. The next incident pounced upon by them was my use of the government wagons in moving stores. As you know I had this done to revictual and supply the army. But I permitted the empty wagons to bring back stores from the direction of New York and was charged with being in communication with the enemy."