Again she indulged in that musical laugh of hers, which was almost contagious.
“That is a little story of mine,” she said, “but I cannot make Liza keep to it. Since my husband went away, I have preferred to keep to myself, and I permitted it to be thought around here that I had gone with him—or in another direction. But it makes no difference. I believe that you have not yet told me your name, sir.”
“I am Mr. Carter, from New York,” he replied, giving his own name in spite of the fact that he was partly disguised. He wished now that he was not.
“Then you are a long way from home, are you not?”
“A very long way; yes, indeed; and my horses were about played out when I arrived here. I doubt if they could have gone three miles farther.”
“And you were bound for——” she stopped with the rising inflection.
“In the morning I will go to a place called Hague, if some one here will direct me.”
“Did you come from the north?”
“I drove from Fredericksburg.”