"O—oh Bet! What happened?"
"Lady Betty gave a little gasp of dismay. 'Arthur Webb! You here!' she exclaimed.
"'Yes, Betty, but do not fear, I will not harm you or give away your secret. I thought you were miles from here.' You know, Kit, I always like to think that Colonel Webb was half in love with her, for he came and kissed her hand over and over again. Wasn't that lovely?"
The girls gave themselves up to their dreams for little while, then Kit said, "And did Colonel Webb
find out that Lord Cecil was there, too?"
"He suspected it after a while, for he knew that Lord Cecil had been wounded and was ill. So he begged her to let him see his friend. But it was only after much pleading that she finally allowed him to descend the steps that led to the tunnel. Colonel Webb waited until late in the night to be sure that his men were asleep.
"The three friends spent the rest of the night talking of the happiness they had had together, and the sorrow and tragedy that the war had brought to all of them. Lady Betty must have been glad that she had allowed Colonel Webb to come and spend those hours with them, for later on he was killed in an engagement and they never saw him again."
"How sad they must have felt," whispered Kit.
"Yes. Lady Betty was never as gay again. You couldn't expect her to be: she had seen and heard of so much suffering and disappointments."
"And did Lord Cecil ever go back to the war?"
"He was in the last campaign that meant victory for the Americans. By the time the war was over, Lord Cecil was a poor man. He had the Manor, of course, but there was little money and they had few luxuries."