“To do what?” I retorted, rising to my feet. I was as angry as she was. “What should I not dare to do?”
“What you are doing!” she rejoined, her eyes sparkling and her breast heaving with excitement.
“I am learning to write with my left hand. Why not?”
“Why not?” she exclaimed. “And what did you promise Colonel Marion?” She pointed to the paper which she had flung on the ground. “What did you undertake on your honor?”
“That I would not communicate with my friends,” I answered sternly. “Nothing more!”
“And what are you writing?” she cried. But her tone sank by a note, and uncertainty fluttered in her eyes.
“That is my business!” I answered. “What is it to you, pray, what I write? Or see!” I stooped, and with difficulty owing to my stiff arm, I recovered one of the scraps of paper. “See! Satisfy yourself. It is but a tag from the book that you lent me.”
She took it. “‘Sure such a various creature ne’er was seen!’” she read mechanically, and with a falling face. “‘Sure—’” she stopped.
“Is it sufficiently harmless?” I asked ironically. “Is there dishonor in it? At least I can say this—I know of no one here, Miss Wilmer, to whom the words can be applied. From your father I have met with consistent kindness and attention. And from you equally consistent—but I will not define it. I leave you to judge of that.”
She was now as angry, I believe, with herself as with me; but she did not see how she could retract and for that reason, whatever the original cause of her attack, she would not own herself in the wrong. “I believe there is such a thing,” she said stubbornly, “as cipher writing.”