“Didn’t you say, just now, that God sent me? I wish I could think it. It would be a great relief to my conscience.”
“Why, don’t you see, I’ve got to play false to my government and my country, if I give you freedom?”
“If I say yes, then you will become stubborn, and refuse to accept the boon of freedom. So, that you may have no scruples, I will tell you that I have a convenient conscience--one that will stretch. I never was raised, like you, a regular, old blue-stocking Presbyterian. Sometimes, though, I wish I had been. For there is no doubt in my mind that the Presbyterian is the most solid and substantial Church on earth.[2] My mother, you know, is a Presbyterian, and my father belongs to the ---- Church. I notice that she is the firmer character, and I can say with truth, more consistent, religiously. I take after my father; and that, I guess, is a good thing for you.”
“Why, don’t you see, if I were a rigid Presbyterian, I should hesitate about giving you liberty? I should be afraid of doing violence to my conscience. Waiving that, however, I think I have been a faithful servant of my government, and they might allow me to release one wretched prisoner.”
“Why could you not get a pardon for me, and thus save your conscience?” asked Mildred.
“How green you women are! Don’t you know there is no pardon for a spy? Don’t you remember Maj. Andre, of the Revolutionary war? Washington would not even let the poor fellow select his own mode of quitting ‘these low grounds of sorrow.’ The punishment for this great sin of espionage is death, and death by hanging.”
“Can you free me,” asked Mildred, “without compromising your own safety?”
“I will have to take some risks, of course, but you needn’t give yourself any uneasiness on my account, my fair cousin. Can you make your way home, if you were out of this building? Can you go alone?”
“Certainly, but it will not be necessary.”
“I shall not conceal anything from you, Will, since you are so kind,” replied Mildred, while a deep blush spread over her features. “I am engaged to be married to a young man who is here. His room is on this floor.”
“Indeed! what a pretty, romantic scrape you have got into! It would do to go into a novel. But you have made such an honest confession, though, that I can’t have the pleasure of teasing you. Is he a Rebel too?”