“I wish thee could hear, my cousin,” said Peggy patiently. “I would that thee might hear from her for my own sake as well as thine. It vexes me for thee to doubt my word, and thee will never believe that I have spoken truth until thee hears from her.”
“But consider,” he said. “It hath been more than a month since you came. When you first came you said that she was in New York. If so, why hath she not written? Ships pass to and from there with supplies and messages for the forces here. ’Twould have been easy to hear.”
“I am sorry that I cannot relieve thy uneasiness,” Peggy made answer. “It is not in my power to do so, Clifford.”
“I am uneasy,” he admitted, sitting upright. “Sometimes I am minded to set forth to see what hath become of her.”
Peggy looked at him with quick eagerness.
“Why not?” she asked. “My cousin, why should we two not go to Philadelphia? Then thee could go on from there to New York to thy sister. Why not, Clifford? My mother——” Her voice broke.
“You want to go home?” he asserted.
“Yes; oh, yes!” she answered yearningly. “Thee is well now. There is naught to do but to amuse thee by reading or by conversation. The troops are now all on the south side of the James River with thy general, Lord Cornwallis. ’Twould be a most excellent time, Clifford, for a start toward Philadelphia. We would have none but our own soldiers to meet.”
“‘Our own soldiers’ mean my foes, Mistress Peggy,” he rejoined with a half smile. “You forget that I am an Englishman. We would never reach your home were we to start. I am not going to risk my new-found freedom by venturing among the rebels.”
“But I am a patriot, and thou art a Britisher, as thou say’st. Why not depend upon me when we are among the Americans, and upon thee when with thy forces?” asked the maiden ingenuously.