Page:Mistress Madcap Surrenders (1926).pdf/228

 Tis strange Mary Ball hath not told me aught," remarked Mehitable. "I would ha' spread the news had he been my cousin!"

"Nay, not so!" returned Doctor Condit unsmilingly. "Any more than Mary hath done, for His Excellency's visits there, as everywhere about this Tory-infested country, have been more or less secret! 'Twould be a fine feather in a red-coat's cap to capture him, and rather hard," the young man finished ironically, "upon the Continental Army."

"True!" Mehitable nodded absently.

"But come, Hitty," her brother twisted himself in his saddle to peer into her face, "tell me why art walking?"

Mehitable explained her horse's lameness, and then, gazing over his shoulder at the Frenchman, La Fayette, who was riding directly ahead of them, she uttered a concerned exclamation.

"Why, John, what be the matter with that man?"

"General La Fayette?" He looked at the young Frenchman and suddenly, it seemed to him, too, that the other was riding doubled up in his saddle. John touched his spurs to his horse, and, drawing abreast the young man on the narrow road, asked what was the matter.

La Fayette turned a pallid face toward him. "M'sieu," he groaned, "I fear I have been given the poison!"