35 A Full Confession

“I tell thee, Jack, thy debt of gratitude to me is not half as heavy as mine to thee. That victory of thine at Fort Recovery has maintained my credit and put heart in the soldiers as nothing else could. Let me hear no more of this nonsense. I use thee because thou art the best tool that my hand can find.”

It was General Wayne who was speaking, and we sat alone in the little log room at Fort Deposit, another post that we had built in the Northwestern wilderness, and yet farther than Fort Greeneville toward the heart of the Indian country. All our army save small garrisons was united there, and we were preparing for the great stroke. And with us, too, was Rose Carew. After the battle at Fort Recovery she might have had to return to Cincinnati perforce, but the way was closed by the savages, and of necessity she came on with us to Fort Deposit. Now we knew that the Indian power was assembling in our front, and we expected a speedy trial of the issue.

General Wayne turned his attention to a piece of paper, across which lines ran in zigzags, with here and there the picture of some wild animal. It was a map made by Osseo, each wild animal representing Indian warriors of a particular tribe, and I have seen many a map drawn by European experts that was not half so good.

“Your red friend gives me the disposition of their forces,” he said, dropping his thee and thou, “and I think we can meet them, Jack, trick for trick. We may rely on Osseo, may we not?”

“As surely as on the rising and the setting of the sun,” I replied with emphasis.

He smiled.

“I know that you are right,” he said. “But, Jack, I wish to talk of the future—that is, your future. There is a matter, Jack, near your heart, of which I want to speak, and you will excuse the freedom of an old comrade in mentioning it, because it is now as a comrade and not as your general that I do speak. You were a fine blade in the old days, Jack, and you had a glib tongue with the ladies. Nor have your years in the woods been unkind to you. I have seen the eyes that you make at Miss Carew. What! blushing? a reprobate like you! But, Jack, you love her—I know it; don’t fib to me about it.”

“It is true, general,” I replied; “I do love Miss Carew, but the best that a man like myself can do is to conceal it, or at least try.”

“It is because you are such a fool, Jack, that I have wished to speak to you of this matter. And it is because of it, too, that I shall send you back to the East. She will be there before you—her father has had enough of the wilderness—and I tell you, Jack, you must go in and win, if for no other reason than to upset that cursed cousin of yours. The fellow has power, and he has tried to weaken me in my command here. I tell you, Jack, you must beat him in love as you have beat him in this war!”

He was the fiery, enthusiastic Mad Anthony Wayne of the Revolution who was now talking, and I caught from him the spirit of hope. “Never mind the past,” he would say, “follow the girl, Jack; follow her, I tell you.”

It seemed a singular chance that another friend of mine should speak to me upon the same subject the next morning. This was Mrs. Winchester. The Winchesters were still with us, though they were to pass to the British post on the Miami the following day.

“Your cousin expects to wed Miss Carew,” she said, “when this war is over and they shall have returned to the East.”

“Has he her promise?” I could not refrain from asking.

“That is a question that you had best ask her.”

“He might say that he had it, but I would not believe him,” I continued.

“You do not love your cousin,” she said, looking at me curiously.

“As much as he loves me,” I replied.

Then she began to tell me of Major Carew and his ambition for his daughter; he was fond of place and power, perhaps excessively so, and he would have his daughter to wed to advantage. Although not saying it in so many words, Mrs. Winchester indicated plainly that Jasper was the choice of Major Carew, and well he might be, since he was one of the richest men in our country. All my own property, escheated after my conviction for treason—I had been treated like the loyalist exiles—had been obtained by Jasper, and at small cost to himself, as I learned. He was now swollen with mine as well as his own, and my heart burned with a fierce rage that he should steal this girl too. Nothing now should keep me back. I, too, would go to the East, and if I could not obtain her for myself I might at least keep her from his arms. I was so much lost in these emotions that I did not notice until presently that Mrs. Winchester was watching me with the greatest keenness and curiosity. But she turned her eyes quickly away when they met mine.

“You are resolved to go back to your old home, are you not?” she asked.

“Yes,” I replied with emphasis.

“You should tell Miss Carew so,” she said.

That was an odd remark for Mrs. Winchester to make, but I did not notice its nature at the time, my mind being so full of Rose Carew and Jasper. Yet it chimed well with my wishes. I would see Miss Carew, and I would tell her the kind of man Jasper was!—No, I could not do that—it would not be the act of a gentleman—but I must talk to her before this battle. I was glad of any excuse now to seek her presence. In the narrow space inclosed by the palisade of Fort Deposit such an opportunity was not long lacking. When we walked together on the little parade ground I told her that we should march without further delay against the Indian power, and the chiefs would not avoid a battle; either their strength would be broken, or they would regain all the Western country.

“But I have decided,” I said, “that in any event I shall return to the East,” and then I added, with an effort at lightness, “you see that you can not escape me; you shall see me there.”

Her face was turned from me then, and I noticed only the gravity of her reply:

“You are right to come.”

“Others who know my history might not say so,” I replied.

“But all the world will know of your great services here,” she said. “How many people on this Western border have you saved from torture and death and worse than death?”

She turned her eyes upon me then. They were luminous and moist with the suspicion of tears. She felt pity for me, I knew. One does not always want pity, but I was moved by it.

“If there is any credit due me,” I said, “I wish to have it. I am not such an affected fool as to deny it. And I should like to have my good name back again. Do you think, Miss Carew, that all these years in the wilderness among savage red men, and almost as savage white men, have hardened me to the shame or made me forget it? I persuaded myself once that it had, and I believed it—almost believed it—until you came. You called me back, not that you meant to do it, or that I meant you should. But all the old rebellion and fierce desire for revenge upon the world that had condemned me rose up again. Do you think I could ever forget that time? Remember that I was only a boy, and the world seemed bright and good. I had name and station, I had won honours in the war, I had comrades of my own age, and I was trusted by great men far older than myself. Think, then, of what I was called upon to endure—this sudden blow! Could you have wondered if I had become the worst of criminals in very truth?”

She turned her eyes upon me then, and they were still luminous and soft with the mist of tears. But she did not speak. My heart was hot within me. I had held down my grief and rage so long that now, at the first lifting of restraint, they burst forth in a flood.

“Do you suppose that I have forgotten it, any detail of it?” I repeated fiercely. “Do you not know what it is to feel that you are despised by all men, that you must always have their contempt? Do you not think that all of it, as hideous as ever, came back to me when I saw you and saw how far away you were? Do you not think I felt as deeply as if I were still the convicted boy, every word of my cousin Jasper, when we met again and he taunted me with that old memory?”

“But you were not guilty,” she said gently.

“No, I was not,” I replied, and it was the first time since my conviction that my pride had ever let me deny it; “but what of that? The evidence said I was, and the court could not do otherwise than it did. The world, the world that was mine, is convinced that I am guilty, and I might as well be.”

“Now it is not your better self, John Lee, that is speaking,” she suddenly interrupted me. “If you are not guilty you are not, and the opinion of all the men in the world can not make you so. I would go back to the East, I would assert my innocence, and I would prove it; even yet I would do so.”

Her eyes were shining, but there were no tears in them now; instead, they sparkled with brilliant fire. It was this that bewildered me for the moment and drew me on.

“I will go back,” I said. “I have finally resolved on that, but whether I shall prove my innocence I know not. It is not alone the hope of regaining my old position that induces me to go; it is less potent than something else.” And now I lost my head fully. “When a man knows that he is condemned, and a woman speaks the only word of sympathy that he has heard in ten years, what can you expect of him? Would he not fall in love with her, even if she were not the best and most beautiful woman that he had ever seen? And when a chance came to him to help her would he not do it, and would not that help itself make him love her the more? You know well of whom I am talking, Rose, dearest Rose! I can call you so because I love you and I can not help it, nor would I help it if I could.”

She tried to say something, but I would not hear her. The words came up from my heart like a flood all the more powerful because held back so long.

“I know that it is folly—nay, more, presumption—in me,” I continued, “but I will say what I feel. You do not understand what a luxury it is to speak one’s real mind after being denied it for many years. I know that I am a miserable object to utter words of love to a good woman, but I say them because I love you!”

“Oh, hush! hush!” she murmured. “Do not talk so!”

“You will be offered love by better men,” I said, “but none will offer you a better love than mine, and I am glad to avow now what I feel.”

I spoke the truth. It was a joy to me to say to her that I loved her. What I had sworn to myself to keep secret I now told her with all the fire and passion of a boy in his first love, and I was proud of it. She turned her head away and said nothing. What feeling looked from her eyes I knew not, but I could not check the torrent of my speech. At last I repeated:

“If I am spared by the battle I shall return to the East, and you shall see me there.”

Then I turned, and not looking back, hurried into the fort. She murmured some words, but I could not stay to listen. I could not bear to hear her reproach me for my folly.

It was folly, I repeated in my cooler moments, yet I was not sorry for it; instead, I felt mental exaltation.

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