A look of sadness came over her face and tears choked her voice as she answered, "God knows!"
It was the calls of old Miss Townsend for her evening vegetables which broke up the visions of the two. The girl's last words had brought to André's mind a picture of his Honora separated from him by miles and miles of ocean. Did she care whether he followed this new beauty? he asked himself. No; she had forgotten him. He looked at Sally. Where were her eager thoughts now? With some slender youth tramping along a Jersey road, perhaps. She was following him through the dark forest where he walked with bleeding feet. Camp-fires glowed before her eyes as he ate his starvation rations, the wind whistled in her ears with its shriek of musketry and deep roar of cannon. Now she gazed upon him wounded and creeping over the mossy turf to some stream to quench his thirst of death. The agony of it was awful.
André saw the horror in her face.
"Poor girl," he whispered, "he is safe somewhere, I know; my heart feels sure of it."
Sally rose and he carried her basket into the kitchen, where a slave woman took it, murmuring protestations of thanks. There was no room in the house for him to sleep, but Sally assured him that he could find a lodging at the tavern.
"May I come and see you to-night?" he said, when they reached the garden gate.
"You had better not," she answered. "You know me only as a hoyden with silly wits. I should hate all of you redcoats!"
"Let me come and I will talk only of him," he whispered.
"Then come," she said. "King George has the whole village in his power, and besides," she added, "you somehow make me think of Jack." And her eyes followed him as he walked down the street, turning often to bow to her until the night folded him in her arms.
"André hath captured the belle," was the verdict of every Simcoe officer quartered at Townsend's. They had become firm friends. The gay young officer had journeyed into the country in search of a pretty face and had found a good heart. André settled in his mind that the waving fichu was but the caprice of a moment; the act of a young and thoughtless girl who never hoped to see him again. Did he really look like Jack? he often asked himself. From Sally he heard of that youth's good parts, and soon began to feel a strange sympathy for him. Before the war he was the master of the village school. He was a dreamer and a writer of sweet verses who should have had naught to do with battle.