It was a pitiful attempt.  She shook her head sadly.  The tears were come now, and she was smiling through them.  The sorrow of that smile!

“I have something to say to you before I go, Patty,” I said.  The words stuck.  I knew that there must be no pretence in that speech.  It must be true as my life after, the consequence of it.  “I have something to ask you, and I do not speak without your father’s consent.  Patty, if I return, will you be my wife?”

The stocking slipped unheeded to the floor.  For a moment she sat transfixed, save for the tumultuous swelling of her breast.  Then she turned and gazed earnestly into my face, and the honesty of her eyes smote me.  For the first time I could not meet them honestly with my own.

“Richard, do you love me?” she asked.

I bowed my head.  I could not answer that.  And for a while there was no sound save that of the singing of the frogs in the distant marsh.

Presently I knew that she was standing at my side.  I felt her hand laid upon my shoulder.

“Is—­is it Dorothy?” she said gently.

Still I could not answer.  Truly, the bitterness of life, as the joy of it, is distilled in strong drops.

“I knew,” she continued, “I have known ever since that autumn morning when I went to you as you saddled—­when I dreaded that you would leave us.  Father asked you to marry me, the day you took Mr. Stewart from the mob.  How could you so have misunderstood me, Richard?”

I looked up in wonder.  The sweet cadence in her tone sprang from a purity not of this earth.  They alone who have consecrated their days to others may utter it.  And the light upon her face was of the same source.  It was no will of mine brought me to my feet.  But I was not worthy to touch her.

“I shall make another prayer, beside that for your safety, Richard,” she said.

In the morning she waved me a brave farewell from the block where she had stood so often as I rode afield, when the dawn was in the sky.  The invalid mother sat in her chair within the door; the servants were gathered on the lawn, and Ivie Rawlinson and Banks lingered where they had held my stirrup.  That picture is washed with my own tears.

The earth was praising God that Sunday as I rode to Mr. Bordley’s.  And as it is sorrow which lifts us nearest to heaven, I felt as if I were in church.

I arrived at Wye Island in season to dine with the good judge and his family, and there I made over to his charge the property of Patty and her mother.  The afternoon we spent in sober talk, Mr. Bordley giving me much sound advice, and writing me several letters of recommendation to gentlemen in Congress.  His conduct was distinguished by even more of kindness and consideration than he had been wont to show me.

In the evening I walked out alone, skirting the acres of Carvel Hall, each familiar landmark touching the quick of some memory of other days.  Childhood habit drew me into the path to Wilmot House.  I came upon it just as the sunlight was stretching level across the Chesapeake, and burning its windows molten red.  I had been sitting long on the stone steps, when the gaunt figure of McAndrews strode toward me out of the dusk.