Order in your men to arrest me.I will proclaim myself guilty, and save your honor.But only speak!""May I ask," said Major Van Zandt coldly, "why you have twice honored me with a blow?""Because I loved you; because, when I first saw you I saw the only man that was my master, and I rebelled; because, when I found Icould not help but love you, I knew I never had loved before, and Iwould wipe out with one stroke all the past that rose in judgment against me; because I would not have you ever confronted with one endearing word of mine that was not meant for you."Major Van Zandt turned from the window where he had stood, and faced the girl with sad resignation."If I have in my foolishness, Mistress Thankful, shown you how great was your power over me, when you descended to this artifice to spare my feelings by confessing your own love for me, you should have remembered that you were doing that which forever kept me from wooing or winning you.If you had really loved me your heart, as a woman's, would have warned you against that which my heart, as a gentleman's, has made a law of honor; when I tell you, as much for the sake of relieving your own conscience as for the sake of justifying mine, that if this man, a traitor, my prisoner, and your recognized lover, had escaped from my custody without your assistance, connivance, or even knowledge, I should have deemed it my duty to forsake you until Icaught him, even if we had been standing before the altar."Thankful heard him, but only as a strange voice in the distance, as she stood with fixed eyes, and breathless, parted lips before him.
Yet even then I fear that, womanlike, she did not comprehend his rhetoric of honor, but only caught here and there a dull, benumbing idea that he despised her, and that in her effort to win his love she had killed it, and ruined him forever.
"If you think it strange," continued the major, "that, believing as I do, I stand here only to utter moral axioms when my duty calls me to pursue your lover, I beg you to believe that it is only for your sake.I wish to allow a reasonable time between your interview with him, and his escape, that shall save you from any suspicion of complicity.Do not think," he added with a sad smile, as the girl made an impatient step toward him, "do not think I am running any risk.The man cannot escape.A cordon of pickets surrounds the camp for many miles.He has not the countersign, and his face and crime are known.""Yes," said Thankful eagerly, "but a part of his own regiment guards the Baskingridge road.""How know you this?" said the major, seizing her hand.
"He told me."
Before she could fall on her knees, and beg his forgiveness, he had darted from the room, given an order, and returned with cheeks and eyes blazing.
"Hear me," he said rapidly, taking the girl's two hands, "you know not what you've done.I forgive you.But this is no longer a matter of duty, but my personal honor.I shall pursue this man alone.I shall return with him, or not at all.Farewell.God bless you!"But before he reached the door she caught him again."Only say you have forgiven me once more.""I do."
"Guert!"
There was something in the girl's voice more than this first utterance of his Christian name, that made him pause.
"I told--a--lie--just--now.There is a fleeter horse in the stable than my mare; 'tis the roan filly in the second stall.""God bless you!"
He was gone.She waited to hear the clatter of his horse's hoofs in the roadway.When Caesar came in a few moments later, to tell the news of Capt.Brewster's escape, the room was empty; but it was soon filled again by a dozen turbulent troopers.
"Of course she's gone," said Sergeant Tibbitts: "the jade flew with the captain.""Ay, 'tis plain enough.Two horses are gone from the stable besides the major's," said Private Hicks.
Nor was this military criticism entirely a private one.When the courier arrived at headquarters the next morning, it was to bring the report that Mistress Thankful Blossom, after assisting her lover to escape had fled with him."The renegade is well off our hands," said Gen.Sullivan gruffly: "he has saved us the public disgrace of a trial.But this is bad news of Major Van Zandt.""What news of the major?" asked Washington quickly.
"He pursued the vagabond as far as Springfield, killing his horse, and falling himself insensible before Major Merton's quarters.
Here he became speedily delirious, fever supervened, and the regimental surgeon, after a careful examination, pronounced his case one of small-pox."A whisper of horror and pity went around the room."Another gallant soldier, who should have died leading a charge, laid by the heels by a beggar's filthy distemper," growled Sullivan."Where will it end?""God knows," said Hamilton."Poor Van Zandt! But whither was he sent,--to the hospital?""No: a special permit was granted in his case; and 'tis said he was removed to the Blossom Farm,--it being remote from neighbors,--and the house placed under quarantine.Abner Blossom has prudently absented himself from the chances of infection, and the daughter has fled.The sick man is attended only by a black servant and an ancient crone; so that, if the poor major escapes with his life or without disfigurement, pretty Mistress Bolton of Morristown need not be scandalized or jealous."