“You shall in a moment,” I answered. “I will just fix this.” And then—“I thought that you had gone,” I muttered.
“Gone?” she cried.
“With General Marion.”
“Gone without thanking you?” she exclaimed. “Oh, impossible! You could not think that of me! Gone without—”
“It was some mistake,” I said.
“It was a very great mistake,” she answered. “Will you allow me to pass you?”
I made way for her to pass to the horse’s head. The stable was dark, I have said, but as she went by, something prompted her to turn, and look me in the face. “The brute hit me on the chin,” I said hurriedly.
She did not speak. I pulled down the gray’s head, and she thrust the bit between its teeth. Then she proceeded to fasten the cheekstrap, but she was so long about it that I saw that her fingers were trembling and that her breath came as short and quick as if she had been running. “My fingers are all thumbs this morning,” she said with a queer laugh. “With joy, I suppose. But there, it’s done, Major Craven. Now I must get my cloak,” she added, and she slipped quickly by me as if she were in a hurry.
“I have it,” I said.
“And my pistol?”