"Well," said I harshly, as he remained silent.
"Lord, Jack, that is all I know. She has cooked for you since, and has kept this house in order, washed dishes, fed the chickens and ducks and pig, groomed your horse, hoed the garden, sewed bandages, picked lint, knitted stockings and soldiers' vests——"
"Why?" I demanded.
"I asked her that, John. And she answered that there was nobody here to care for a sick man's comfort, and that Dr. Thatcher had told her you would die if they moved you to Johnstown hospital.
"I thought she'd become frightened and leave when the Continentals marched out; they all came—the officers—where she sat a-knitting by the apple-tree; but she only laughed at their importunities, made light of any dangers to be apprehended, and refused a seat on their camp wagon. And it pleased me, John, to see how doleful and crestfallen were some among those same young blue-and-buffs when they were obliged to ride away that morning and leave here there a-sewing up your shirt where Balty's bullet had rent it."
A slight thrill shot me through. But it died cold. And I thought of Steve Watts, and of her in his embrace under the lilacs.
If she now remained here it was for no reason concerning me. It was because she thought her lover might return some night and take her in his arms again. That was the reason.
And with this miserable conclusion, a more dreadful doubt seized me. What of the loyalty of a girl whose lover is a King's man?
I remembered how, in the blossoming orchard, she had whispered to me that she was a friend to liberty.
Was that to be believed of a maid whose lover came into our camp a spy?