Still in deference to the Cumberland prejudice, the re-marriage of Ethel Thorne took place very quietly.  It was a morning wedding, graced only by the presence of a few indifferent relatives, and a small crowd of curious friends.  The two Misses Cumberland, handsome, heavy-browed women, after much discussion in the family bosom, and some fraternal persuasion, had allowed themselves to be seduced into attending the obnoxious nuptials, and shedding the light of the family countenance upon the ill-doing pair.  Very austere and forbidding they looked as they seated themselves, reprobatively, in a pew far removed from the chancel, and their light was no better than the veriest darkness.

Twelve hours after the marriage had been published to the world, another marked paper was speeding southward, addressed this time to Pocahontas, and accompanied by a thick, closely written, letter.  Thorne had decided that it would be better to send a messenger before, this time, to prepare the way for him.  In his letter Thorne touched but lightly on the point at issue between them, thinking it better to take it for granted that her views had modified, if not changed.  The strength of his cause lay in his love, his loneliness, his yearning need of her.  On these themes he dwelt with all the eloquence of which he was master, and the letter closed with a passionate appeal, in which he poured out the long repressed fire of his love:  “My darling, tell me I may come to you—­or rather tell me nothing; I will understand and interpret your silence rightly.  You are proud, my beautiful love, and in all things I will spare you—­in all things be gentle to you; in all things, save this—­I can not give you up—­I will not give you up.  I will wait here for another week, and if I do not hear from you, I will start for Virginia at once—­with joy and pride and enduring thankfulness.”

Pocahontas took the paper to her mother’s room, the letter she put quietly away.  She would answer it, but not yet; at night—­when the house should be quiet she would answer it.

The lines containing the brief announcement were at the head of the list: 

MARRIED.

“CUMBERLAND-THORNE.—­At the church of the Holy Trinity, September 21st, 18—­, by the Rev. John Sylvestus, Cecil Cumberland to Ethel Ross Thorne; both of this city.”

Mrs. Mason laid the paper on the little stand beside her chair.  “My daughter,” she said, looking up at the girl seriously, “this can make no difference.”

“No, mother,” very quietly, “no difference; but I thought you ought to know.”

In her own room, at night, when the house was still, the girl sat with the letter in her lap thinking.  The moonlight poured in through the open window and made a map on the floor, whereon slender shadows traced rivers, mountains and boundaries.  In the trees outside, the night insects chirped, and bats darted and circled in the warm air.