Page:War; or, What happens when one loves one's enemy, John Luther Long, 1913.djvu/298

WAR sick, never had been. Dave, himself, had said so. Dave would be thought to have deceived them with the pretense of illness. Mallory must, at once, prove his apparent faithfulness, disappear from here and turn up in Stuart's cavalry or run the risk of the secret silent "execution" the Knights visited upon deserting spies.

"And, Jon, dear, I am so sick! I shall die on the way. And no one will know it. I shall lie in the woods and rot and never reach Stuart—and Dave will still be in danger, for he will still be here, and he, not I, is thought to be Mallory. Nothing I can now say will change that. No one will believe me. They know Mallory only as a man. And it must be—to-night. The signs said so. So, you must help me across the line. I can not reach there alone. You can still return in time to join your command if we start now. You know the password. I have my uniform. I'll put it on."

And she must have started away.

"Wait—wait!" says Jon. "Something must 282