I could not accept any such assertion, and I told him so, adding that I did not wholly regret our excursion into Philadelphia.
"Miss Desmond!" said Marcel, understandingly, "she is worth any man's winning, and you might have won her if—if—"
Then he stopped abruptly and stared blankly at me, unwilling to finish the sentence. The night came presently, and they brought us food, which we scarcely touched. There was no light in our prison, but through the single iron window we could see flickering camp-fires outside. The low murmur of the army came to us.
We sat on our stools for a long time in silence. I was trying to prepare myself for the future, and I suppose that Marcel was occupied with a similar task. It must have been past 10 o'clock when the door of the prison was opened and our colonel came in. Sincere sorrow was written plainly on the good man's face.
"I have heard about you," he said, "and I went to him at once, and pleaded with him. I urged your previous good service and your youth, but I could not shake him a particle. There have been too many desertions lately, and the army is at a low ebb. You are officers, and your fate will be an example for all."
"Our case is past mending," said Marcel. "We thank you for your good wishes and your efforts, but I don't think that anything can be done."
"That is so," said the colonel. "The next life is what you must now consider."
Our colonel was a good man and a good soldier, but he was never noted for tact. Somehow he could not get off the subject of our execution, and when he left with tears in his eyes, and an expressed hope that he might deliver our last messages for us, he took with him our few remaining grains of courage, and we felt that death was very, very near.
Bye and bye, two more officers whom we knew well came to bid us good-bye. They had obtained permission from the general, they said, and they too had interceded for us, but fruitlessly; they could offer us no hope whatever. They were frank in condemning the severity of General Washington, and this knowledge that our friends regarded our punishment as far out of proportion to our crime, made it all the more bitter to us.
"General Washington may be a great man and a fine commander," said Marcel, after they had gone; "but he will never get forgiveness for this."