It was a small and barren cell, smelling of medicines, soap and pine planking. Arnold lay on a narrow cot, his bandaged leg looking like a bolster beneath the coverlet, and the collar of a flannel nightgown buttoned high around his throat. He thrust out his lower lip as he watched us come in, so that his face appeared to be compressed and choleric. His pale blue eyes looked cold as ice. It seemed to me I had never seen a man look so angry, and yet so lonely and forgotten.

I thought of Gates, back at Saratoga, entertaining gaudy British officers in his tent and receiving the admiration and acclaim of all the countryside; while this man, who had won the battles for which Gates was being honored, lay shattered here alone. To pass the time he could, I saw, stare through a dust-streaked window at the town he had saved, but I doubted that he’d much entertain himself in that way.

At the sight of Ellen, he pulled the neck of his flannel nightgown still higher and made a sort of grimace, so that I knew every movement pained him. “Well,” he said, “this is an unexpected pleasure! I remember having the honor once before—at Crown Point, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Ellen said. “At Crown Point. Ah, General Arnold, in those days I thought you were a terrible man—a dreadful person, who killed women and little children; who stole communion cups from churches. You see, I was with a lady then—a lady whom I loved and trusted. Her name was Marie de Sabrevois, General.”

“I see,” Arnold said. “I see.”

Ellen turned to Nathaniel, then back to Arnold again. “I know it’s not customary for a soldier to sit down in the presence of a general, but poor Nathaniel has a wound. He was shot trying to get back to fight with you, General. Will you let him sit down, please?”

“By all means!” Arnold said. “By all means! And you, too, ma’am!”

I was filled with amazement at the manner in which Ellen, as innocent and harmless-looking as a small brown wren, had in two sentences disarmed an old soldier.

He lay there staring at her as we helped to let Nathaniel down easily into a chair. Then the cold blue eyes swung sharply to my brother. “That’s how you got shot, was it? Decided to come back—at last—did you?”

Nathaniel’s hopeless eyes didn’t meet the cold blue fire that glinted from Arnold’s, nor did he speak; but Ellen, leaning toward him, touched him gently upon the arm; then she turned to the bed.