"Alone?" The major made his demand without mercy.
"No, sir, with Mr. Sevier--why, aren't you going to have breakfast,
Major, it is almost church time?" and Caroline rallied her domestic
dignity to her support as she escaped toward Temple's domain.
And the flush of joy that had flamed in her cheeks had lighted a glow in
the major's weather-tanned old face and his eyes fairly snapped with
light. Could it be that the boy had reached out for his atonement? Could
it be--he heard the front door close as the first church bell struck a
deep note and at that moment Jeff announced his breakfast as ready in a
voice of the deepest exhaustion.
And when Caroline emerged from the still darkened house into the crisp
air she found Andrew Sevier standing on the front steps waiting to walk
into church with her.
Her smile of shy joy as she held out her hand to him warmed his somber
eyes for the moment.
"They are all asleep," she whispered as if even from the street there was
danger of awakening the tired hunting party. "The major is keeping it
quiet for them."
"And you ought to be asleep, too," he answered as they started off at a
brisk pace down the avenue.
"_You_ weren't," she laughed up at him, and then dropped her eyes shyly.
"I always go to church," she added demurely.
"And I suppose I counted on your habit," he said, utterly unable to
control the tenderness in voice or glance.
"I wanted you to go with me to-day--I hoped you would though you never
have," she answered him with a divine seriousness in her lifted eyes.
"They are all coming to dinner and then you'll go to the office, so I
hoped about this morning." She was utterly lovely in her gentleness
and a strange peace fell into the troubled heart of the man at her side.
And it followed him into the dim church and made the hour he sat at her
side one of holy healing. Once as they knelt together during the service
she slipped her gloved hand into his for an instant and from its warmth
there flowed a strength of which he stood in dire need and from which he
drew courage to go on for the few days remaining before his exile. Just
to protect her, he prayed, and leave her unhurt, and he failed to see
that the humility and blindness of a great love were leading him into the
perpetration of a great cruelty, to the undoing of them both.
Then in the long days that followed so hunted was he by his love of her
that that one hour of peace in the Sunday morning was all he dared give
himself with her. And in her gentle trustfulness it was not hard to make
his excuses, for the Monday morning brought the strenuosity in
the career of David Kildare to a state of absolute acuteness.