JUDITH. Yes, I suppose so. (Embracing him again.) Oh how brave
you are, my dear! (With tears in her eyes.) Well, I'll be brave
too: you shan't be ashamed of your wife.

ANDERSON. That's right. Now you make me happy. Well, well! (He
rises and goes cheerily to the fire to dry his shoes.) I called
on Richard Dudgeon on my way back; but he wasn't in.

JUDITH (rising in consternation). You called on that man!

ANDERSON (reassuring her). Oh, nothing happened, dearie. He was
out.

JUDITH (almost in tears, as if the visit were a personal
humiliation to her). But why did you go there?

ANDERSON (gravely). Well, it is all the talk that Major Swindon
is going to do what he did in Springtown--make an example of some
notorious rebel, as he calls us. He pounced on Peter Dudgeon as
the worst character there; and it is the general belief that he
will pounce on Richard as the worst here.

JUDITH. But Richard said--

ANDERSON (goodhumoredly cutting her short). Pooh! Richard said!
He said what he thought would frighten you and frighten me, my
dear. He said what perhaps (God forgive him!) he would like to
believe. It's a terrible thing to think of what death must mean
for a man like that. I felt that I must warn him. I left a