“That accounts for Tarleton’s doubt of you. Joscelyn, I will not stay here a moment longer and expose you thus. My mother’s house has already been searched—”
“And will be again ere nightfall. What you propose is folly,—worse than folly; it is death to you and betrayal to me. There are double guards everywhere, for Colonel Tarleton is as much policeman as soldier. You could not leave this house and cross the street alive!”
“Then what must I do?”
“Why, in sooth, since you cannot go, you must remain.” There was just a touch in her voice and smile which made him think of their early days of quarrel and make-up. It was such an intoxicating change from her manner of a moment ago that he lost his head and caught her for a moment in his strong arms. But she broke away, and gathering up the pitcher and platter prepared to go.
“There is just one thing,” she said hesitatingly, “your despatches—?” He tapped his forehead. Again she paused irresolutely, the colour coming and going in her delicate cheeks. “I am saving you, not your despatches; do you understand?”
“You do not mean—?”
“Yes, I mean that Greene must learn nothing from you if you escape.”
But his hand was over her mouth before she could go on. “You cannot make a request so unworthy of you and of me! Think you for one instant that I would buy my safety with the information that may save my comrades? No, no, Joscelyn dear; you did not ask such a thing of me, for you would not dishonour me, although you say you do not love me. I make no such bargain with you; either I carry my despatches to my general, or I walk out of your house this minute, and let the first ball that can hit me put an end to my life.”
His hand was on the door, but she dragged him back; her face like ashes. “No, no, Richard; I will not ask it—indeed, I will not!”