"An emigrant, or prisoner of war—which you will."
"Separated from him——"
"For nearly a year."
"How sad!"
"I do not find it very sad; nor would you think so, Monsieur Oliver, if you knew all," said she with an air of annoyance.
"How came this about; for you seem a very willing prisoner of war?"
"I was returning to France in a ship from St. Pierre, but was captured by one of your cruisers, and landed here. M. le Gouverneur of the Barbadoes assigned to me this pretty villa of Boscobelle, to which you, my preserver, are most welcome! What more would you wish to learn?"
I was silent; for I had heard that the wife of a French commander in the Windward Isles was the prisoner of war who had supplied us with many details, as to the number of men, guns, and fortresses in Martinique and Guadaloupe—details which Sir Charles Grey found of the greatest value, when maturing those plans of conquest for which the great armament wherein I formed a unit, was fitted out by Britain.
The rank, name, and solitary condition of my beautiful young hostess, though they would have encouraged an older or more reckless gallant, all conduced to silence and bewilder me. She quickly perceived this; but was too polite, or too politic to remark it, and pressed me to take more wine. I did so; but after a time my perplexity and constraint seemed to annoy her, and she asked,—
"Of what are you thinking, monsieur?"