"Not ended; I shall remember."
"Well, and if we both remember--to what purpose?"
"To what purpose is friendship, Carus, if not to remember when alone?"
I listened, head bent. Then, pursuing my own thoughts aloud: "It is not wise for a maid to plight her troth in secret, I care not for what reasons. I know something of men; it is a thing no honest man should ask of any woman. Why do you fear to tell Sir Frederick Haldimand?"
"Captain Butler begged me not to."
"Why?" I asked sharply.
"He is poor. You must surely know what the rebels have done--how their commissioners of sequestration seized land and house from the Tryon County loyalists. Captain Butler desires me to say nothing until, through his own efforts and by his sword, he has won back his own in the north. And I consented. Meanwhile," she added airily, "he has a glove of mine to kiss, I refusing him my hand to weep upon. And so we wait for one another, and pin our faith upon his sword."
"To wait for him--to plight your troth and wait for him until he and Sir John Johnson have come into their own again?"
"Yes, Carus."
"And then you mean to wed him?"
She was silent. The color ebbed in her cheeks.
I stood looking at her through the evening light. Behind her, gilded by the level rays of the sinking sun, a new headstone stood, and on it I read: IN MEMORY OF Michael Cresap, First Cap't Of the Rifle Battalions, And Son to Col. Thomas Cresap, Who Departed this Life, Oct. 18, A.D. 1775.
Cresap, the generous young captain, whose dusty column of Maryland riflemen I myself had seen when but a lad, pouring through Broadalbin Bush on the way to Boston siege! This was his grave; and a Tory maid in flowered petticoat and chip hat was seated on the mound a-prattling of rebels!
"When do you leave us?" I asked grimly.
"Captain Butler has gone to see Sir Henry to ask for a packet. We sail as soon as may be."
"Does he go with you?" I demanded, startled.
"Why, yes--I and my two maids, and Captain Butler. Sir Frederick Haldimand knows."
"Yes, but he does not know that Captain Butler has presumed--has dared to press a clandestine suit with you!" I retorted angrily. "It does not please me that you go under such doubtful escort, Elsin."