er feelings
forcing a release in speech.

"What, me?" asked the old man, startled, not yet having thought to
connect her words with his last interview with the American officer.
He looked at her for a moment, but, receiving no satisfaction, calmly
refilled, from a leather pouch, his pipe, which he had found on the
mantel.

Elizabeth's thoughts began to take more distinct shape, and, in order
to formulate them the more accurately, she spoke them aloud to the old
man, finding it an assistance to have a hearer, though she supposed
him unable to understand.

"Yet he wasn't a coward that evening he rode to attack the Hessians,--nor
when he was wounded,--nor when he stood here waiting to be taken! He was
no coward then, was he, Mr. Valentine?" Getting no answer, and
irritated at the old man's owl-like immovability, she repeated, with
vehemence, "Was he?"

Mr. Valentine had, by this time, begun to put things together in his
mind.

"No. To be sure," he chirped, and then lighted his pipe with a small
fagot from the fireplace, an operation that required a good deal of
time.

Elizabeth now spoke more as if to herself. "Perhaps, after all, I may
be wrong! Yes, what a fool, to forget all the proofs of his courage!
What a blind imbecile, to think him afraid! It must be that he acts
from a delicate conception of honor. He would not encroach where
another had the prior claim. He considers Colden in the matter. That's
it, don't you think?"

"Of course," said Valentine, blindly, not having paid attention to
this last speech, and sitting down in his armchair.

"I can understand now," she went on. "He did not know of my engagement
that time he made love, when his life was at stake."

"Then he's told you all about it?" said the old man, beginning to take
some interest, now that he had provided for his own comfort.

"About what?" asked Elizabeth, showing a woman's consistency, in being
surprised that he seemed to know what she had been addressing him
about.

"About pretending he loved you,--to save his life," replied Mr.
Valentine, innocently, considering that her supposed acquaintance with
the whole secret made him free to discuss it with her.

Elizabeth's astonishment, unexpected as it was by him, surprised the
old man in turn, and also gave him something of a fright. So the two
stared at each other.

"Pretending he loved me!" she repeated, reflectively. "Pretending! To
save his life! _Now I see!_" The effect of the reve