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only too well. Then he just nodded, stifling his emotion, not wishing to reveal what he had in fact carried in his heart for years, ever since meeting her long before the war.
    “Her father was a merchant in Philadelphia,” Peter said, trying to act calm. “We’re distant cousins. You must remember when she used to visit us in Trenton before the war. Pretty lass. Why?”
    Allen hesitated, Peter looking over at him.
    “It’s just that while we occupied Philadelphia, I met her…” and his voice trailed away.
    He could sense the sudden tension in Peter.
    “And?” Peter finally whispered, voice tight, even trembling.
    “It’s just that, well at that time…” and again he fell silent.
    “Something happened?”
    “No, not really,” Allen replied, though that was something of a lie. A lot had happened, and she had never left his heart after two and a half years.
    Any attempt at friendliness of but a moment before seemed to have evaporated as Peter gazed at him.
    Allen tried to smile.
    “Peter, don’t tell me that you…” and his voice trailed off.
    Peter just looked at him coldly.
    “Don’t tell me,” Allen said softly. “My God, she’s nearly two years older than you and I just assumed…”
    “Two years might be a big difference when I was fifteen,” Peter snapped, “but not now at twenty.”
    “You do have feelings for her then?” Allen asked. He was trying to sound like an old friend, kidding a comrade about a girl both were interested in, but it came out awkwardly.
    Peter, still stiff as if struggling for control, looked back at his escort, two old troopers nearly twice his age, both of them grinning over this conversation that they were obviously “eavesdropping” on.
    “I don’t want to speak of it with you,” Peter finally said.
    “I’ve tried to send at least a dozen letters through the lines, Peter,” Allen replied, “but never a word of reply. I worry for her. After our army evacuated Philadelphia I feared she might face reprisals as a Loyalist, especially because her father fled to New York, claiming he was going there to oversee the family business interests and leaving his daughter to oversee their home, legally signing it over to her name. Their friend Doctor Rush was supposed to keep an eye on her and vouch for her if need be.
    “Peter, regardless of your personal feelings, as a gentleman may I ask a favor?”
    Peter nodded, not replying, making no offer.
    He took a deep breath.
    “She was close friends with Peggy Shippen. I fear that association compounded by the fact that her father has fled to New York, now puts her in harm’s way.”
    “That traitorous bitch Shippen!” Peter snapped. “My God, if Elizabeth is friends with her, she better lay low until Judgment Day. If Shippen wasn’t a woman, she’d be dancing at the end of a rope tomorrow morning as well.”
    Allen instantly regretted telling Peter that bit of news. At this moment Peggy was the most infamous woman in North America—the wife of the arch traitor Benedict Arnold, and beyond that rumored to have been the mistress of his friend Major John Andre when they had occupied Philadelphia back in ’77. Some even saw her as the link of communication between the two.
    “Could you at least make sure for me that Elizabeth is all right and inform her that I still think of her daily and,” he hesitated, “that I still love her?”
    “I’m making no promises on that score,” Peter replied sharply. “As to your personal concerns, Miss Elizabeth is perfectly safe. Neither of us makes war on women and children.”
    “Not what I’ve heard from along the frontier and down South,” Allen retorted.
    The tension triggered by mention of Elizabeth stilled their conversation and the attempts by both, at some level, to try to show some level of friendship for a childhood friend evaporated. It was, of course, compounded by the fact that both faced each other, not just at this moment, but across the years in the game of