"I feel so sorry for Peggy," Marjorie sighed.
"The young wife has a sore burden thrown upon her. A sorry day it was when she met him," was Mrs. Allison's comment.
"Strange, I never suspected Peggy for a moment," Marjorie said. "I had been raised with her and thought we knew each other. I am sorry, very sorry."
"We do not know how much she is concerned with this," announced Mr. Allison, "but her ambition knew no restraint or limitation. She has her peerage now."
"The grave of a traitor, the sole immortality of degraded ambition, religious prejudice, treason and infamy."
In July, 1780, General Arnold had been placed in command of West Point; two months later he was safe on board the British sloop-of-war, _Vulture_. He had attempted to betray his country; he received in exchange six thousand pounds sterling, together with a brigadiership in the British Army.
From the time he left Philadelphia until the morning of his flight he had kept up a continual correspondence with John Anderson. Information was at length conveyed to him that Sir Henry Clinton was in possession of advices that the American Commander-in-chief contemplated an advance on New York by way of King's Bridge. Clinton's scheme would allow the army of General Washington to move upon the city, having collected all his magazines at the fortification at West Point, but at a given moment Arnold was expected to surrender the fort and garrison and compel the army of Washington to retire immediately or else suffer capture in the field.
Still Arnold felt that everything was not quite settled between Sir Henry and himself, and wrote accordingly, advising that a written guarantee be forwarded or delivered in person to him by an officer of Sir Henry's staff of his own mensuration. He was informed by way of reply that the necessary meeting might be arranged, and that the emissary would be the Adjutant-General of the British Army.
Accordingly the British sloop _Vulture_ moved up the river as far as Stony Point, bearing the Adjutant-General. Arnold had fixed on the house of Joshua Smith as the place for the meeting. On the night of the twenty-first of September, he sent a boat to the _Vulture_ which brought the emissary shore. In a thick grove of cedars, in the shroud of the blackest night, Arnold waited the return of the rowboat, its oars muffled with sheepskins, its passenger on board. The latter sprang lightly to the shore, his large blue watchcoat and high boots alone visible. As he climbed the bank and approached the grove, he threw back his cloak and revealed the full British uniform of a general officer.