“No, Cousin William, I did not weep. It mattered not who gave the warning so long as the governor and the brigade received it. It was most fitting that Harriet should have the praise, as that was all she got out of it. ’Twas planned, as thee must know, for her to receive a more substantial reward.”
“You have not lost your gift of a sharp tongue, I perceive,” he answered a flush mantling his brow. “Have a care to your words, my little cousin. You are no longer in your home, but in mine.”
“I am aware of that, sir. But that I am here is by no will of mine. If I am used despitefully ’tis no more than is to be expected from those who know naught but guile and artifice.”
“Have done,” he cried, rising from the table. “Am I to be railed at in mine own house? Harriet, show this girl to her chamber.”
Nothing loth Peggy followed her cousin to a little room on the second floor, whose one window looked out upon the noble Hudson and the distant Jersey shore.
“Aren’t you going to be friends, Peggy?” questioned Harriet pausing at the door. “I could not do other than I did. Father wished me to bring you here.”
“But why?” asked Peggy turning upon her. “Why should he want me here? Is it to flout me?”
“I know not, Peggy. But be friends, won’t you? There is much more sport to be had here in the city than in yon camp. You shall share with me in the fun.”
“I care not for it,” rejoined Peggy coldly. “And I will never forgive thee, Harriet Owen. Never! I see not how thee could act so.”
And so saying she turned from her cousin with unmistakable aversion, and walking to the window gazed with aching heart at the Jersey shore line. Harriet stood for a moment, and then went out, closing the door behind her. Presently Peggy flung herself on the bed and gave way to her bitter woe in a flood of tears. For what lay at the bottom of her bitterness? It was the sharp knowledge that, with just a little forethought, a little heeding of her mother’s and John Drayton’s warnings, all this might have been avoided.