"You can be assured."
"Mistress Claire," broke in Peter, "some one is riding up the road."
"Yes, Peter, yes. Major, wait here! Don't move. We will go back and meet him."
I held my horse steady, although he made an effort to follow. Voices came back to me through the darkness,—Grant's loud enough to be clearly heard.
"What, is this you, Claire?" he laughed gruffly. "By all the gods, I thought it must be Eric. I never expected to find you togged out in this style. By Jove, I could wish it was daylight."
Whatever she replied must have sobered the fellow.
"Everything I say you take wrongly. Of course it's all right, for the country is full of stragglers out of both armies. Lord, I don't care what you wear, as long as it suits you. My business? Oh, I explained all that to your putty-faced servant—Saint Anne! that fellow! But I'll review the matter again. I'm drumming up Clinton's deserters, but now I've met you, I'm tempted to go along with you as far as Elmhurst."
"Become a deserter yourself?"
"Oh, no, or at least only temporarily. There will be plenty of fighting yet in the Jerseys. Clinton's whipped all right, and is going to have a time getting away to the ships. In my judgment there will be richer picking for a Jerseyman right here at home, than with the army in New York."
There was a moment's silence; then the girl asked, a shade of horror in her voice: