"Do you know," observed Marjorie, "I greatly mistrust General Arnold and I fear that he already has decided against you."
"Well ... I don't know ... I just think it. While listening to him last evening I drew that impression."
"He is enraged at Congress and he has long felt persecuted and insulted by the people. He desires a command in the navy and has already written Washington to that effect; and again he would petition Congress for a grant of land in New York where he would retire to private life, for he vows he never will again draw sword on the American side."
"I really do. He talked with all the earnestness of a man of conviction. Somehow or other I greatly mistrust him. And he is extremely bigoted."
"I rather suspect this, although I have had no proofs of it. If he is, it will out very soon."
"And you may be assured, too, that he will have an able adjutant in Peggy. She is his counterpart in every particular."
He looked at her as she spoke, and was amazed by the excitement in her face. She talked excitedly; her eyes, those large vivacious brown eyes that looked out of her pretty oval face, were alight, and her face had gone pale.
"I was interested in them last evening and with the apparent zeal displayed by Peggy's mother in favor of the match. I would not be surprised to hear of an announcement from that source at any time."
"Most assuredly! I decided that they already are on terms of intimacy where secrets now obtain a common value."
"Well.... I do.... Yes. I know, for instance that he had a letter in his possession which was addressed to her, which letter had its origin in New York."
"She must have given it to him. I have it now."
She smiled at him, and at his great perplexity over the apparent mystery.
And then she told him of the little party; of herself and Mr. Anderson, and their intrusion upon General Arnold and Peggy; of their conversation and the falling of the note; of her subsequent return for it together with the placing of it within her bodice and the state of temporary oblivion into which the incident finally had lapsed.
"You have that letter now?" he asked with no attempt to conceal his anxiety.
"May I see it? Really I would not ask this did I not think it quite important."