But she had arisen and now stood at the entrance of the path, looking slightly over her shoulder and ignoring his question with another:
"You say things are really hurrying?"
"Dulany is buying the necessary land in record time," he answered.
"But," she hesitated, pouting just a little, "that implies no work of your own! Still, I suppose I should be thankful for whatever we receive. And, oh, Brent," she now turned and looked seriously up at him, "if you would only stop this wretched drinking! Tell me, why do you? What call, or what cause, makes you? Is it to drug the mind into some sort of mock rest, or the body into sleep, or the soul—ah, Brent, what does the soul do when it is stupefied? The pity of it flares up in me like a great scorching flame!"
He opened his lips, but could not speak. The words, their sincerity, sympathy, and wonderfully strange appeal, came like an unfelt air; for a second time setting a-tremble the tiny taper flame in that reliquary of which he had told her. Another moment she looked appealingly up at him, then turned toward the house.
"Jane!" His voice, hoarse and vibrating, held her where she stood. She dared not see the face which her senses said had been driven white by some tremendous feeling. So she waited, listening.
The smell of cedar buds was in the air about them; and wafted out on this, as though it might have been just now brought up from the musty depths of some old cedar chest, they heard the thin voice of Miss Liz scolding one of the servants. Otherwise, the morning seemed to have no life except the lazy drone of insects.
Again she started slowly to the house; but this time he did not speak, and only watched until she disappeared.