“I am so sure of that,” said Harry, “that I confide to your care for a time what is dearest to me in the world. I ask you to accompany Miss Philipse to her home in New York, when it may suit her convenience, and to see that she suffer nothing for what has occurred here this night.”
“You are a generous enemy, sir,” said Colden, his eyes moistening again. “One man in ten thousand would have done me the honor, the kindness, of that request!”
“Why,” said Harry, taking his enemy’s hand, as if in token of farewell, “whatever be the ways of the knaves, respectable and otherwise, who are so cautious against tricks like their own, thank God it’s not so rotten a world that a gentleman may not trust a gentleman, when he is sure he has found one!”
Turning to Elizabeth, he said: “I beg you will leave this house at dawn, if you can. Williams and Sam, there, will be little the worse for their knocks, and can look after the fellows on the floor.”
“And you,” she replied, “must go at once. You must not further risk your life by a moment’s waiting. 282 Cuff shall saddle Cato for you. I sha’n’t rest till I feel that you are far on your way.”
He approached as if again to kiss her, but she held out her hand to stay him. He took the hand, bent over it, pressed it to his lips.
“But,—” he said, in a tone as low as a whisper, “when—”
“When the war is over,” she answered, softly, “let Cato bring you back.”