Howard and Raymond were to be actors in
that terrible drama not yet played; stripped and powder-blackened
at their guns, they were perhaps doomed to go down with their ship
and find their graves in the Caribbean. Before them lay untold
possibilities of wounds and mutilation, of disease, suffering, and
horror. What woman that knew them could look on unmoved at the
sight of these men, so grave and earnest, so quietly resolute, so
deprecatory of anything like braggadocio or over-confidence? It
filled Christine Latimer with a fierce pride in herself and them;
in a race that could breed men so gentle and so brave; in a
country that was founded so surely on the devoted hearts of its
citizens.
She was crying as Raymond came to her later on the same evening,
and found her sitting in the far end of the drawing-room with the
lights turned low. They were alone together, for the quartermaster
had left Howard with his mother and his brothers gathered in a
farewell group about the library fire. Miss Latimer took both of
Raymond's hands, and, with no attempt to disguise her sorrow, drew
him close beside her on the divan. She was overflowing with pity
for this poor fellow, whose life had been so hard, in which until
now there had neither been love nor friends, whose only human tie
was to his mother and to her. Had he known it, he might have put
his arms about her and kissed her tear-swollen eyes and drawn her
head against his breast. She was filled with a pent-up tenderness
for him; a word, and she would have discovered what was until then
inarticulate in her bosom.
Pages:
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133