"Stay. That can wait. You were right. They were against me."
"I felt it all the time. You know yourself how they despise you."
"But I never thought——"
"What?" was the interruption. "You never thought? You did, but you were not man enough to realize it. Reed would stop at nothing, and if the colonists gain complete independence, the Catholic population will give you no peace. That you already know. You have persecuted them."
"What are they? A bare twenty or twenty-five thousand out of a population of, let us say, three million."
"No matter. They will grow strong after the war. Unfortunately they have stuck true to the cause."
"Bah! I despise them. It is the others, the Congress, Lincoln, Gates, Lee, Wayne. They will acquire the honors. Washington will be king."
"And you?"
"I'm going to change my post."
She smiled complacently, and folded her arms.