He was silent, and dared not look at Carmen, for he feared to read what might be written on her countenance.  She sat perfectly still, absorbed in her own thoughts, her hand shading her eyes, and her breath heaving quickly.  The blood seemed frozen with horror in her veins at what she had heard; her brave heart quailed before the dreadful future, which she knew not how to meet.  And yet one thought stood prominently forth from the rest:  she must prove her love for her father at any cost.  He needed it sorely now, and she had only a short hour ago declared she would love him the better for his fault, and thus help him to bear his misery.  He had sinned for the sake of her mother, who surely would have forgiven him and loved him, whatever other people might have felt.  The daughter, must not set herself up to condemn her father.  God would judge him mercifully, according to the depth of his repentance and suffering.  Of this she felt perfectly assured; so, raising her head and turning her face to her father, she threw her arms about the old man’s neck.

“Be comforted, dear father, and trust in God!” she said lovingly.  “You have atoned so deeply and long that your sin is surely forgiven, and I am sure we will find some way out of this dreadful trouble.”

She was silent a moment, sunk in deep thought.  “I must inherit my dear mother’s aversion to Brother Jonathan, for I have felt it as long as I can remember, and it would be quite impossible to give myself to him.  I hate him as I do the Evil One.  I could believe anything, however bad, about him; and yet what he does is good, always good, and he has shown himself a friend to you.  Let us consider if there may not be some way out of this dreadful dilemma.”

The old man leaned, sobbing, against the girl whom he, as a father, should have been able to succor, and whose poor brains were now racked with caring for both herself and him.

* * * * * *

The fury of the storm had spent itself, but the rain still poured in torrents, when, towards five o’clock in the afternoon, two companies of soldiers, which had been manoeuvring during the day, came marching along, in rather disorderly fashion, on the highroad to the settlement.

“It is well the order to bivouac in this deluge has been countermanded, for we would certainly have been drowned like rats,” said one of the two officers, who were marching a little in advance.  “Yet almost anything would have been preferable to taking up our quarters with these pious people, whom I doubt will give us any sort of a welcome.  They look on us as cannibals and murderers, and I tremble to think how their untiring zeal will urge them on to attempt our conversion.”

His companion laughed.  “It will not be so bad as you think, Hansen; although I must admit I don’t think our wild boys will be very welcome guests to them.  It will sadly disturb their extreme orderliness and quiet routine of life.”