oved you; because, when I first saw you I saw the only man
that was my master, and I rebelled; because, when I found I could not
help but love you, I knew I never had loved before, and I would 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 I caught 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