The shots ceased, giving place to an angry roar that struck terror to her heart that wet and lowering afternoon.  The powerful black horses galloped on.  Nicodemus tugging at the reins, and great splotches of mud flying in at the windows.  The roar of the crowd died to an ominous moaning behind them.  Then she knew that Mr. Brinsmade was speaking:—­ “From battle and murder, and from sudden death—­from all sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion,—­Good Lord, deliver us.”

He was repeating the Litany—­that Litany which had come down through the ages.  They had chanted it in Cromwell’s time, when homes were ruined and laid waste, and innocents slaughtered.  They had chanted it on the dark, barricaded stairways of mediaeval Paris, through St. Bartholomew’s night, when the narrow and twisted streets, ran with blood.  They had chanted it in ancient India, and now it was heard again in the New World and the New Republic of Peace and Good Will.

Rebellion?  The girl flinched at the word which the good gentleman had uttered in his prayers.  Was she a traitor to that flag for which her people had fought in three wars?  Rebellion!  She burned to blot it forever from the book Oh, the bitterness of that day, which was prophecy of the bitterness to come.

Rain was dropping as Mr. Brinsmade escorted her up her own steps.  He held her hand a little at parting, and bade her be of good cheer.  Perhaps he guessed something of the trial she was to go through that night alone with her aunt, Clarence’s mother.  Mr. Brinsmade did not go directly home.  He went first to the little house next door to his.  Mrs. Brice and Judge Whipple were in the parlor:  What passed between them there has not been told, but presently the Judge and Mr. Brinsmade came out together and stood along time in, the yard, conversing, heedless of the rain.

CHAPTER XXI

THE STAMPEDE

Sunday dawned, and the people flocked to the churches.  But even in the house of God were dissension and strife.  From the Carvel pew at Dr. Posthelwaite’s Virginia saw men and women rise from their knees and walk out—­their faces pale with anger.  At St. Mark’s the prayer for the President of the United States was omitted.  Mr. Russell and Mr. Catherwood nodded approvingly over the sermon in which the South was justified, and the sanction of Holy Writ laid upon her Institution.  With not indifferent elation these gentlemen watched the departure of brethren with whom they had labored for many years, save only when Mr. Brinsmade walked down the aisle never to return.  So it is that war, like a devastating flood, creeps insistent into the most sacred places, and will not be denied.  Mr. Davitt, at least, preached that day to an united congregation,—­which is to say that none of them went out.  Mr. Hopper, who now shared a pew with Miss Crane, listened as usual with a most reverent attention.  The clouds were