Leaving the wall she blundered forward, now and then brushing against one of the old headstones. She knew what they looked like well enough: short thick slabs of greenish slate with a death’s head at the top; some of reddish sandstone; beyond them the granite tombs where the great families lay. But she could not seem to find the path that would lead her through. And then, somehow she did find it, and groped her way to the wall on the far side with the open fields beyond. He was standing there, just as she knew he would be.
He carried a dark lantern, half open now to let a little light shine through, and he wore the rough shirt and breeches of an American farmer. Sally Rose would have been disappointed had she hoped to see the scarlet coat. As he heard her footstep on the worn grass he drew in his breath sharply.
“Ah, Sally Rose!” he whispered, and turned the lantern full upon her.
“I—I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I’m her cousin Kitty. She sent me to tell you—”
And then suddenly, to her own horror, in spite of the awe she felt for this handsome young stranger from the enemy camp, in spite of the need to keep this tryst in silence and secrecy, she began to giggle. She couldn’t help it when she thought of Sally Rose trapped in the stays; of her pretty, angry face on top of the body of a pinched white worm. She put both hands to her mouth and rocked and rocked with stifled mirth.
Then she realized that he was shaking her. “Stop it, Kitty, if that’s your name,” he said. His voice was firm but not unkind. “Where’s Sally Rose? Tell me what you are laughing at? I want to laugh, too.”
He had put the lantern down and was holding her by both shoulders. She could not see his face, and yet she knew what he looked like. She would always remember him, she thought, from that day when he marched past the Bay and Beagle and she was standing at the door. Suddenly she found herself telling him all about the stays and Sally Rose.
He kept very quiet until she had finished, but then he did not laugh as she had expected him to do. When he spoke again, his voice had an impatient sound.
“I’ve often heard the men in barracks say—the married men, that is—that women have no sense at all. And I guess they be right. I’m sorry Sally Rose did such a foolish thing. I—I wanted—tonight it really mattered that I should see her.”
“But she will be here tomorrow night, sir,” answered Kitty, not quite sure how one addressed a British officer who pretended not to be a British officer. “It will be such a little time till then.”