"Must not! But will not the circumstance alter the case? I say that unless the proofs of Arnold's treason are irrefutable, the people will be slow to believe. I don't like it. I don't."
There was some logic in his argument which began to impress Marjorie. Arnold could exercise a tremendous amount of influence over the army. Whether the strings of loyalty which had united their hearts with his would be now snapped by his act of perfidy was the mooted question. As a matter of fact a spirit of mutiny already was beginning to make itself manifest. The soldiers of Pennsylvania who were encamped on the heights of Morristown marched out of camp the following January and set out for Philadelphia. They were rebuked by Washington, who sent a letter by General Wayne, whereupon they returned to their posts. Later in the same month another mutiny occurred among the New Jersey troops, but this, too, was quickly suppressed. Just how much responsibility for these uprisings might be traced to the treason of Arnold can not be estimated. There is no question, however, that his act was not wholly unproductive of its psychological effects.
"I feel so sorry for Peggy," Marjorie sighed.
"The young wife has a sore burden thrown upon her. A sorry day it was when she met him," was Mrs. Allison's comment.
"Strange, I never suspected Peggy for a moment," Marjorie said. "I had been raised with her and thought we knew each other. I am sorry, very sorry."
"We do not know how much she is concerned with this," announced Mr. Allison, "but her ambition knew no restraint or limitation. She has her peerage now."
"And her husband?"
"The grave of a traitor, the sole immortality of degraded ambition, religious prejudice, treason and infamy."
"God help him!" exclaimed Mrs. Allison.