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“I might have wished that the meeting had been spared, that I might not have kept you from friends whom you are naturally anxious to see, that my boy’s indisposition had not detained you. Home and his good nurse Mountain, and his mother and our good Dr. Dempster will soon restore him. ‘Twas scarce necessary, Colonel, that you who have so many affairs on your hands, military and domestic, should turn doctor too.”

“Harry was ill and weak, and I thought it was my duty to ride by him,” faltered the Colonel.

“You yourself, sir, have gone through the fatigues and dangers of the campaign in the most wonderful manner,” said the widow, curtseying again, and looking at him with her impenetrable black eyes.

“I wish to Heaven, Madame, someone else had come back in my place!”

“Nay, sir, you have ties which must render your life more than ever valuable and dear to you, and duties to which, I know, you must be anxious to betake yourself. In our present deplorable state of doubt and distress Castlewood can be a welcome place to no stranger, much less to you, and so I know, sir, you will be for leaving us ere long. And you will pardon me if the state of my own spirits obliges me for the most part to keep my chamber. But my friends here will bear you company as long as you favour us, whilst I nurse my poor Harry upstairs. Mountain! you will have the cedar room on the ground floor ready for Mr. Washington and anything in the house is at his command. Farewell, sir. Will you be pleased to present my compliments to your mother, who will be thankful to have her son safe and sound out of the war?–as also to my young friend, Martha Custis, to whom and to whose children I wish every happiness. Come, my son!” and with these words, and another freezing curtsey, the pale little woman retreated, looking steadily at the Colonel, who stood dumb on the floor.

Strong as Madame Esmond’s belief appeared to be respecting her son’s safety, the house of Castlewood naturally remained sad and gloomy. To look for George was hoping against hope. No authentic account of his death had indeed arrived, and no one appeared who had seen him fall, but hundreds more had been so stricken on that fatal day, with no eyes to behold their last pangs, save those of the lurking enemy and the comrades dying by their side. A fortnight after the defeat, when Harry was absent on his quest, George’s servant, Sady, reappeared, wounded and maimed, at Castlewood. But he could give no coherent account of the battle, only of his flight from the centre, where he was with the baggage. He had no news of his master since the morning of the action. For many days Sady lurked in the negro quarters away from the sight of Madame Esmond, whose anger he did not dare to face. That lady’s few neighbours spoke of her as labouring under a delusion. So strong was it that there were times when Harry and the other members of the little Castlewood family were almost brought to share in it. No. George was not dead; George was a prisoner among the Indians; George would come back and rule over Castlewood; as sure, as sure as his Majesty would send a great force from home to recover the tarnished glory of the British arms, and to drive the French out of the Americas.

As for Mr. Washington, she would never, with her own good will, behold him again. He had promised to guard George’s life with his own, and where was her boy.

So, if Harry wanted to meet his friend, he had to do so in secret. Madame Esmond was exceedingly excited when she heard that the Colonel and her son absolutely had met, and said to Harry, “How you can talk, sir, of loving George, and then go and meet your Mr. Washington, I can’t understand.”