This brought back to Elizabeth’s mind the talk 97 between Colden and Peyton, which her feelings had for the time driven from her thoughts. But now a natural curiosity asserted itself.
“So you knew the fellow before?”
“I met him in ’75,” said Colden, blurting awkwardly into the explanation that he knew had to be made, though little was his stomach for it. “He was passing through New York from Boston to his home in Virginia, after he had deserted from the King’s army—”
“Deserted?” Elizabeth opened wide her eyes.
Colden briefly outlined, as far as was desirable, what he knew of Peyton’s story.
It was Miss Sally who then said:
“And he disarmed you in a duel?”
“He had practised under London fencing-masters, as he but now admitted,” replied Colden, grumpily. “He made no secret of his desertion; and in a coffee-house discussion I said it was a dastardly act. So we—fought. Since then I’ve met officers of the regiment he left. Such a thing was never known before,—the desertion of an officer of the Sixty-third,—and General Grant, its colonel, has the word of Sir Henry Clinton that this fellow shall hang if they ever catch him.”
“Then I hope my horse will carry him into their hands!” said Elizabeth, heartily. “My poor Cato! I shall never see him again!”