prayers for one suited “to a man and his wife quarreling.”  There was a prayer for the President, a prayer for the clergy, a prayer for Congress, a prayer for rain, a prayer for the sick, a prayer for people going to sea and people going to be hanged, but there was nothing for the point at issue, unless he took the prayer to be used in time of war and tumults, and that he thought would never answer, inasmuch as he did not really know who was the enemy from which he would be delivered.  It was hard to decide against Ethelyn and still harder to decide against “Dick,” and so with his brains all in a muddle Andy concluded to take the prayer “for all sorts and conditions of men,” speaking very low and earnestly when he asked that all “who were distressed in mind, body, or estate, might be comforted and relieved according to their several necessities.”  This surely covered the ground to a very considerable extent; or if it did not, the fervent “Good Lord, deliver us,” with which Andy finished his devotions, did, and the simple-hearted, trusting man arose from his knees comforted and relieved, even if Richard and Ethelyn were not.

With them the trouble continued, for Ethelyn kept her bed next day, refusing to see anyone and only answering Richard in monosyllables when he addressed himself directly to her.  Once he bent over her and said, “Ethelyn, tell me truly—­is it your desire to be with me, your dread of separation from me, which makes you so averse to be left behind?”

There was that in his voice which said that if this were the case he might be induced to reconsider.  But though sorely tempted to do it, Ethelyn would not tell a falsehood for the sake of Washington; so she made no reply, and Richard drew from her silence any inference he pleased.  He was very wretched those last days, for he could not forget the look of Ethelyn’s eye or the sound of her voice when, as she finally gave up the contest, she said to him with quivering nostrils and steady tones, “You may leave me here, Richard, but remember this:  not one word or line will I write to you while you are gone.  I mean what I say.  I shall abide by my decision.”

It would be dreadful not to hear a word from Ethie during all the dreary winter, and Richard hoped she would recall her words; but Ethelyn was too sorely wounded to do that.  She must reach Richard somehow, and this was the way to do it.  She did not come downstairs again after it was settled.  She was sick, she said, and kept her room, seeing no one but Richard and Eunice, who three times a day brought up her nicely cooked meals and looked curiously at her as she deposited her tray upon the stand and quietly left the room.  Mrs. Markham did not go up at all, for Ethelyn charged her disappointment directly to her mother-in-law, and had asked that she be kept away; and so, ’mid passion and tears and bitterness, the week went by and brought the day when Richard was to leave.

CHAPTER XIV