“What have I done with Harriet?” repeated Peggy so surprised by the question that she let the violets fall to the floor unheeded. Clifford had not mentioned his sister’s name since the first day she came. “I told thee, my cousin, that the council had sent her to New York, because she communicated with Sir Henry Clinton which is not allowed. She had been warned, but she heeded it not. Does thee not remember?”
“I know what you told me,” he made answer. “Think you that I believe it? Nay; I know that your people have prevented her from coming to me.”
For a moment Peggy was so amazed that she could only stare at him. When she had recovered sufficiently to speak she said clearly:
“I think thee must be out of thy mind, cousin. I spoke naught but truth when I told thee of Harriet. I should not know how to speak otherwise. Why should we hinder thy sister from coming to thee? There would be no reason.”
“At one of the taverns where we stopped on the way down here, a captain, a whipper-snapper Yankee, flaunted a shirt in my face made by my sister.” The boy’s eyes flashed at the recollection. “I wrote her praying her to tell me that he did it but to flout me. I prayed her to write that she was still loyal to her king and country. And she answered not. I sent another letter, and still there was no reply. Then I tried to escape to get to her, and I was wounded in the attempt. The director of the hospital here promised, to quiet me, that he would see that she received a letter, and I wrote for her to come. Harriet would have come had she not been prevented.”
“But why should she be prevented?” demanded the astounded Peggy.
“Because ’twas feared that once she was with me she would return to her allegiance. That my influence would make her remember that Colonel Owen’s daughter could show no favors to a Yankee captain; that——”
“Clifford Owen,” interrupted the girl sternly, “listen to me. Thou art exciting thyself needlessly. Thy sister likes the Yankee captain, as thee calls him, no more than thee does. She did make that shirt; but ’twas done because she was as full of idle fancies as thou art, and mother sought by some task to rid her of the megrims. She gave it to John hoping to flout him, thinking that he would not wear a garment bearing the inscription embroidered, in perversity, upon it. She did write to thee. Not once but several times. That thee did not receive the letters is to be deplored, but not to be wondered at, considering the state of the country. She exerted herself on thy behalf to procure a parole, and ’twas near accomplishment when, impatient at the delay, she wrote to Sir Henry Clinton imploring him to ask thy exchange. As I have told thee, ’tis not permitted for any to communicate with the enemy, and so she was sent to New York. And now thee has the gist of the whole matter,” concluded Peggy with dignity.
“And why is she not here?” he asked obstinately.
The girl rose quickly.