“I am able, but some one will have to help me to hobble. Go tell Miss Betty, and then come back and dress me.” She felt a little flutter of excitement at again meeting the companion of her late adventures, and selected her dress with some care. Yet she sighed once or twice. She had been very unjust to Robert, and of course he could never forgive her. Yes, it was as he had said; that dream was over. Nevertheless, she had a little feeling of resentment toward him because he had not assured her of his innocence. “If he had not reproached me, but had told me, I would have believed him,” she told herself. She had been too hasty, she admitted, but like many other persons, she did not feel willing to exculpate the supposed offender from all blame and to acknowledge herself in the wrong, and her feeling of resentment in consequence almost overcame her regrets. CHAPTER XIV. “_Sorrow an’ Trouble._” The two who had lately been companions in misery met each other, at the supper table, for the first time since the evening of their perilous experience. “This is but our third meeting,” said Mr. Baldwin, “and how various the circumstances.” “There is a mighty big difference between a ball-room, Aunt Hagar’s cabin, and our present surroundings,” Lettice returned. “We cannot complain of monotony. How are you, Mr. Baldwin? Mammy tells me your fever ran high, and no wonder; I have felt like a rag, myself.” “Thanks to good nursing I am much better, and shall be able to proceed to Washington to-morrow, I trust.” “You are not well enough,” Mrs. Betty protested. “We cannot let you go when you are but half mended.” “Ah, but there is no word but duty to those who have promised to serve their country,” replied the young man. “Yes, but one owes a duty to one’s self as well as to one’s country,” Betty returned. “Every man is needed. With so little success on the frontier, reverses at sea, and this vandal, Cockburn, ready to destroy and pillage along these shores, it is every man’s duty to be at his post, if he is able to get there.” “Yes, I suppose so,” Betty sighed. “That is what William says. With his father and uncle on the frontier, his brother gone to join Barney, and with the plantations running to waste down here, they all have no word but duty.” “And that is right,” Lettice spoke up. “It is to protect their women and their homes that they go.” Mr. Baldwin nodded with a pleased smile. “After all that you have suffered, to hear you say that, Miss Lettice, proves that you are very loyal.” “I am the more so that I have suffered. The worse we are treated the more eager we are for the war to go on.” “That is beginning to be the prevailing spirit. But I wish I could know you safe in Baltimore. I think it is very unsafe for ladies to be left unprotected when the enemy is so near.” “And such an enemy!” cried Betty. “Then don’t you think you ought to stay and protect us, Mr. Baldwin?”