"You shall tell me," said I.

"Make me if you can," said she.

"Tell me what those cases contain," said I.

Then she collapsed all at once as only the citadel of a woman's will
can do through some inner weakness.

"Guns and powder and shot and partizans," said she. Then she added,
like one who would fain readjust herself upon the heights of her own
resolution by a good excuse for having fallen--"Fie, why should I
not have told you, Master Wingfield? You cannot betray me, for you
are a gentleman, and I am not a child."

"Why have you had guns and ammunition brought from England?" I
asked; but in the shock of the discovery I had loosened my grasp of
her bridle and she was off, and in a minute we were in Jamestown,
and could not disturb the Sabbath quiet by talk or ride too fast.

We were a good hour and a half late, but there was to my mind enough
of preaching yet for my soul's good, for I thought not much of
Parson Downs nor his sermons, but I dreaded for Mistress Mary that
which might come from her tardiness and her Sabbath-breaking, if
that were discovered. I dismounted, and assisted Mistress Mary to
the horse block, and off came her black velvet mask, and she clapped
a pretty hand to her hair and shook her skirts and wiped off a mud
splash. Then up the aisle she went, and I after her and all the
people staring.