“Cease such bibble-babble, Jan. ’T is for your own good I am acting. Not merely is this fellow wholly beneath ye in birth and fortune, besides a rebel to our king, but there are facts about him of which ye have not cognisance that should serve to rouse your pride.”
“What?”
“What say ye to an intimacy twixt this same Brereton and Mrs. Loring?”
With the question the girl was on her feet, yet with down-hung head. “He—I know he does not care for her,” she declared.
“Ye know nothing of the kind,” retorted the squire. “I bear in my pocket a letter from her to him of so private a nature that she would not trust it to a flag, because then it must be read, which Lord Clowes brought to me with the request that I would in some way smuggle it to him.”
“That means little,” said Janice.
“And what say ye to his meeting her in New York, for that is the purpose of her letter to him?”
“How know you that?” cried Janice.
“Because she writ on the outside that the commander at Paulus Hook had been sent orders to pass him to New York.”
“That proves no wrong on his part,” answered the girl, her head proudly erect. “Nor will I believe any of him.” And without further words she went from the room. But though she went to bed, she tossed restless and wakeful till the sun rose.