But Dorothy, pushing Doak aside, advanced with an impetuosity that gave no opportunity for questioning or reproof, and took away all need of explanation from the astonished guardian of the great man's privacy.
"You gave me this, sir—last night," she said, holding out the paper, and speaking in the same fearless, trusting manner she would have adopted toward her own father, "and you will surely remember what you promised."
As she came forward, Washington, seeing who it was, laid down his pen, and his face took the expression it had borne when he was talking with her the evening before. There was a tender, a welcoming light in his eyes, as though her coming were a pleasure,—as if it brought relief from the contemplation of the grave responsibilities resting upon him.
He arose from his chair, and taking the paper from her hand, laid it upon the table. Then he turned to her again and said smilingly, "My dear child, the promise was surely of small worth if I could forget it so soon after it was given."
But there was no smile upon the face into which he was looking, and its earnestness seemed now to bring to him the conviction that the girl had come upon no trifling matter.
He bade Doak resume his post outside the door, and to permit no one to enter, howsoever important the business might be. Then, when the fisherman had gone, he invited Dorothy to be seated, and asked her to tell him the object of her coming.
He sat down again by the table, but she remained standing, and now came close to him, her clasped hands and pleading eyes fully as beseeching as the words in which she framed her petition.
"Oh, sir—I have come to beg that you will not hang the English officer whom I hear you suspect of being a spy."
Washington started in surprise; a stern light gathered in his eyes, and he looked as though illy pleased.
Dorothy was quick to see this, and felt that her only hope of success lay in telling him the entire truth.