In the wide window at the end of the long room Caroline turned and waited
for Andrew. The lights from the city beat up into her face and she was
pale, while her jewel eyes shone black under their long lashes. Her white
gloved hands wrung themselves against his breast as she held him from
her.
"Out there while we danced," she whispered, "I don't know what, but
something told me that you are going to leave me and not tell me why. You
were saying good-by to my heart--with yours. Tell me, what is it?"
And with full knowledge of the strange, subtle, superconscious thing that
had been between them from the first and which had manifested itself in
devious mystic ways, Andrew Sevier had dared to think he could hold her
in his arms in an atmosphere charged with the call of a half-barbarous
music and take farewell of her--she all unknowing of what threatened!
"What is it?" she demanded again and her hands separated to clasp his
shoulder convulsively. Her words were a flutter between her teeth.
Then the God of Women struck light across his blindness, and taking her
in his arms, he looked her straight in the eyes and told her the whole
gruesome bitter tale. Before he had finished she closed her eyes against
his and swayed away from him to the cold window-pane.
"I see," she whispered, "you don't want me--you
couldn't--_you_--_never_--_did_!"
And at that instant the blood bond in Andrew Sevier's breast snapped and
with an awed comprehension of the vast and everlasting Source from which
flows the love that constrains and the love that heals, the love that
only comes to bind in honor, he reached out and took his own. In the
seventh heaven which is the soul haunt of all in like case, there was no
need of word mating.
Hours later, one by one the lights in the houses along the avenue
twinkled out and the street lay in the grasp of the after midnight
silence. Only a bright light still burned at the major's table, which was
piled high with books into which he was delving with the hunger of many
long hours of deprivation strong upon him. He had scouted the idea of the
ball, had donned dressing-gown and slippers and gone back to the company
of his Immortals with alacrity. On their return Mrs. Buchanan and the
girls had found him buried in his tomes ten deep and it was with
difficulty that Phoebe, kneeling beside him on one side, and Caroline on
the other, made him listen to their joint tale of modern romance, to
which Mrs. Matilda played the part of a joyous commentator.