“But your duty calls you back to your own camp, now that your wound has healed.”
“I think my wound has undergone a slight relapse. You shall see, at least, I am not afraid of your champion.”
“If that is your only reason,—your desire to 224 quarrel with Major Colden,—I cannot invite you to remain.”
“Well, then, to tell the truth, there is another reason. When I said, a while since, I had never seen you in that gown, I used too many words. I should have said I had never really seen you at all.”
“Where were your eyes?” she asked, absently, seeming to take his words literally and to perceive no compliment.
“I was in a kind of waking sleep.”
“It has been a time and place of hallucinations, I think. I, too, sir, have been, since I came here a week ago, under the strangest spell. A kind of light madness or witchery was over me, and made me act ridiculously, against my very will. A week ago, when you were disabled, I intended to give you up to the British,—as I should do now, if it would not be so troublesome—”
“’Twould be troublesome to me, I assure you,” he said, interrupting.
“But at the last moment,” she went on, “I did precisely the reverse of what I wished. Awhile ago, in this room, I seemed to be in the possession of some evil spirit, which made me say preposterous things. I can only remember some wild raving I indulged in, and some undeserved rudeness I displayed towards you. But, will you believe, the instant you left me, I recovered my right mind. I am 225 like one returned from bedlam, cured, and you will pardon any incivility I may have done you in my peculiar state, I’m sure, since you speak of having been curiously afflicted yourself.”
“Then you mean,” he faltered, “you did not really love me?”