He went with her into the sitting-room, and, with the luxurious hearth-glow brightening his face and taking that deathly pallor out of it, the while her magnetic presence kindled a tempestuous fire in his veins, he told her the story of that final surrender and of his hurt, softening the former narrative as best he might, remembering how she had wished it otherwise. Then with a half-whimsical, half-pathetic touch upon his bandaged arm, he said:-- "The surgeon said that with time and care this would heal, but the accident has left me but one hand wherewith to begin that other campaign which means so much to me,--for if I win you not, I might as well have perished at the hands of the Redcoats." As she listened, while the afternoon wore away, she was conscious of some change in him. Not that his tone showed less of resolution to achieve his purpose; it was rather an absence of the over-weening self-confidence which had so offended her in the past. Five years of warfare and baffled wooing had taught him something of self-distrust, something of humility which became him well. The empty sleeve and the emaciated, listless figure touched her with a quick pity, in such violent contrast were they to his former robust activity and superb proportions, so that she sighed and turned her face aside. And he, on his part, was studying her, finding again, with a thrill of joy, the same saucy curves about her lips, the same glinting blue lights in her eyes that had held his heart captive in the past; and noting, too, the touch of womanly dignity which had in some wise supplanted the impetuosity of the old days. The girl of eighteen had become a woman of twenty-three since that day she had laughed down upon the Continentals marching away to Valley Forge. But there was not an attraction lost; rather was every charm ripened and perfected by the hallowing touches of growth and development. If he had loved her in the past, a thousand times more did he love her now in her splendid womanhood. Had she cared for Barry? Always the question was a stab; and with it now there came the first quick doubt of the final healing of his arm. Could she ever love him if he should be maimed like this forever? Looking up suddenly, she found his eyes upon her face in such a wistful gaze that she flushed involuntarily, and a painful silence fell between them. Intuitively she felt that this was not the same Richard who had gone away, this earnest, tender man with not a trace of arrogance in his manner. Had he always been like this, they need not have quarrelled. She had been willing to overlook much had he only left her a right to her own opinions, and treated the views her father had taught her with respect. "Do you know," she said, breaking the pause with a little nervous laugh, "that if you are to preserve the good will of your neighbours, you must stay away from me?"