The young soldier plunged through the door of a public-house only a few steps further on. It had commenced to blow, and the wind roared furiously in the swaying elms outside. Occasionally the lightning made it bright as day. Carter sank into a big oak chair.
"Ah, Lieutenant Hewes! Not over on the island?" said some one, clapping his hand on the lad's shoulder. "Where have you been?"
"I do not know exactly," murmured Carter, faintly, looking up at the handsome face of Lieutenant Alexander Hamilton, whom he had met often on the drill-grounds.
"That means there's a story to be told," went on the other. "Come, join me in my dining. Don't let the elements interfere with our natural appetites."
Carter did not know that part of his faintness came from lack of food. But when a big bit of tender mutton was placed before him, he ate with every mouthful putting life into him.
As he was about to begin to tell the tale of adventure of the previous day he felt something hard in the lining of the borrowed coat, and inserting his fingers, he drew forth a small note-book; he uttered an exclamation of surprise.
"George Frothingham—his book, 1774," he read, and sat there too astonished to speak. "That was the year he left school—to go to Mr. Wyeth's," said Carter out loud. Again the anguish and fear shook him, for it recalled the last time he had seen George's face, and this book in the pocket of a strange coat. What meant it?
Lieutenant Hamilton looked as if he feared that his friend's senses had left him suddenly.
"Let us have the story, Comrade Hewes," he said.
But it was never to be told. An interruption occurred just then that changed the current of every thought, and stirred the room to a pitch of action.