There's no doubt Washington
has spies in the town, and ways of communicating with the rebel
sympathisers here; I've sometimes thought my father--but no matter for
that. The fact is, there the letter was, as certainly from Ned as I'm
looking at you; and we know he's in the rebel army. But the wonder,
the incredible thing, is that he should write to Margaret."
"'Tis a mystery, in truth."
"Well, 'tis none of ours, after all, and of course this will go no
further--but let me tell you, the devil's in it when those two are in
correspondence. There's crookedness of some kind afoot, when such
haters combine together!"
"You didn't ask her, of course?"
"No. But I knocked at her chamber door, and getting no answer I went
down-stairs again. This time she was in the parlour. She had been in
the library before, it seemed; 'twas warmer there."
But, as I narrowly watched the poor lad, I questioned whether he was
really convinced that she had been in the library before. He had said
nothing of Captain Falconer's sitting-room, of which the door was that
of the transformed large parlour, and was directly across the hall
from the Faringfields' ordinary parlour, wherein Tom had first sought
and eventually found her.
'Twas our practice thus to ride back to our posts when we had been off
duty, although our rank did not allow us to go mounted in the service.
For despite the needs of the army, the Faringfields and I contrived to
retain our horses for private use.
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