Calhoun stood by while this conversation was [pg 326]going on, the great drops of perspiration gathering on his forehead. Was he going to lose Joyce after all?
The father arose and left the room. No sooner was he gone than she turned, and with a low cry sank into her lover’s arms.
“Joyce, Joyce, what have you done?” cried Calhoun. “Fly with me now! Let me take you to my Kentucky home. Father will welcome you. You will not lack the love of a father.”
Joyce raised her head, her eyes swimming in tears, but full of love and tenderness. “Hear me, Calhoun,” she said, “and then you will not blame me. We cannot marry now, we are both too young. You told me that you and your cousin were to go to Harvard. That means four long years. Before that time my father may give his consent to our union.”
“But you told him you would not see me, would not even write. That means banishment.”
“Not from my heart,” she whispered. “Calhoun, for you to attempt to see me now, or to write to me, would be but to increase my father’s opposition. I trust to time, and by filial obedience to win him. It is a fearful thing, Calhoun, to be disowned by one’s own father, and by a father who loves one as I know my father loves me. It would kill him if I left him, and the knowledge would make me unhappy, even with you. Calhoun, do you love me?”
“As my life,” he answered, clasping her once more to his breast. “And to be banished entirely [pg 327]from your presence is more than I can bear. It is cruel of you to ask it.”
“Calhoun, did you love me when I aided you to escape?”
“You know I did, why do you ask?”
“Yet you left me for two long years, left me to fight for principles which you held dear. What if, for love of me, I had asked you to resign from the army, to forsake the cause for which you were fighting?”