"Fighting like a hero over the body of General Mercer at Princeton. His men retreated and left them--" "The rebel cowards," she interrupted. "Nay, not cowards, but perhaps less brave than he. The British charged with their bayonets; our men had not that weapon, they fell back." "Were you there, sir?" "Surely not! Should I be here now if I had been there then, madam?" he replied proudly. "True, true! you at least are a gentleman. Forgive the question." "General Mercer and some of his officers sprang at the line. I had it from his own lips. Some one cut the general down; Hilary interposed, and enabled him to rise to his feet; they were attacked, fought bravely until--until--they died." Stricken to the death at least, but determined to die as the rest had died, fighting, she drew herself up resolutely, and lifted her hand to that pitiless heaven above her. "So--be--it--unto--all--the--enemies--" When had he heard her say that before, he wondered in horror. She stopped, her face went whiter before him, the light went out of it. "Oh, my son, my son--O God, my son, my son--Oh, give him back, my son--my son!" She reeled and fell against him, moaning and beating the air with her little feeble hands. The break had come at last; she was no longer a Talbot, but a woman. With infinite pity and infinite care he half led, half carried her into the house, and then, after being bidden not to summon assistance, he sank down on his knees by her side, where she lay on the sofa in the parlor, crushed, broken, feeble, helpless, old. With many interruptions he told her the sad story. He laid the long dark lock of hair he had cut from her son's head in her hand. There was a letter from George Washington which he read to her, in which, after many tender words of consolation, he spoke of Talbot as "one who would have done honor to any country." He told her of that military funeral, the kind words of Cornwallis, the guard of honor, the soldiers of the king, and then he put Talbot's own letter to him before her, and she must be told of the loss of the frigate. Kate dead too, and Colonel Wilton. Alas, poor friends! But all her plans and hopes were gone; what mattered it--what mattered anything now! "Oh, what a load must those unrighteous men bear before God who have inaugurated this wicked war!" she cried; but no echo of her reproach was heard in the houses of Parliament in London, or whispered in the antechamber of the king, to whom, assuredly, they belonged.