The Colonel disappeared shortly after dinner for his nap, and Brent sat alone under the trees indulging several rather curious speculations. His eyes were closed, though in no sense was he sleepy. He was thinking of a force; a new, an entirely new force; a perplexing force that each day more determinedly gripped and held him. He had at last taken his character into his hands and was contemplating its remodelling.
There comes a time to the life of every man when he shall sit in hollow solitude and gaze upon the error of his way. To some this may be at the bud, with every outlook forward; to others, not till they are well along the path of yellow leaves. For it is not man who makes this moment. Circumstance, pure and simple, leads to his sublime communion, and circumstance is of the earth. A man may sin, and keep on sinning with never a qualm, till reality sends in the bill. Then it is as if he had stepped upon a corpse at night, and he is shocked beyond his strength to move. Whether this be the specter of public shame, of physical decay, or the ruin of a fellow, and however far along the highway of his life it may appear, there still must come that hour to each who has unworthily yielded, when he stands appalled; that hour when he raises eyes and arms in mute despair up, up—somewhere. This is God's hour; then is where His mercy conquers. But grim realities are not required to touch all hearts. It does not need the jail, it does not need the fiery lash of a ruined woman's pleading, it does not need the death-bed of one beloved; because the Kingdom of Earth is such that just a pair of eyes, a damask cheek, the murmuring of a name at twilight, may grow beneath some magic dew into a power that holds one hand upon the Throne and with the other meets mankind. Love!—another son of God; sometimes welcomed, sometimes cherished, sometimes flattered, sometimes crucified!
Brent clenched his teeth. In years his own outlook was across the sprouting fields of life, but to his hope of winning Jane he could gaze only back along the path of yellow leaves. He realized how truly this was of his own doing, and unsparingly laid the blame at its rightful place. With whatever sincerity he might curse his follies, with whatever fierce pleasure he would strangle them for her sake, their abandonment now could not weld that link which would have united the chains of their destinies. Too late! The utter hopelessness of this made him groan aloud, as he had the first night they met in the circle of cedars; then, from a false and poisonous pride; now, from humility and a man's honest grief.
The sound of wheels brought him back to the time and place. He looked up, shaking off the spell; but his hands were tightly shut, as if he might be gripping the last tatters of abandoned hope. With a quick gesture he made as though to wrap them close about him, and then smiled at the realism into which his earnestness was leading.
Jane was standing on the porch, waiting; and a darky had brought around Brent's own horse and buggy. Some time before this, loud calls from the house and faintly returned answers from the creek had apprized him of Bip's shameless truancy; but he was fully expecting the mountaineer to go with them until this very minute when he saw what character of vehicle stood before the house. He arose and crossed to her, casually asking:
"Where's Dale?"
Two lights crossed the lenses of her eyes, but no timer could have caught them.
"Where?" she asked. "Who knows? He's so utterly oblivious to everything, living in an age so long before the Christian era, that it would be a paradox to take him into a latter-day church."
While speaking she had come down the steps. He helped her in and settled himself comfortably beside her.
"Did you notice how he flew from the dinner table straight back to his books?" she asked, as they turned out of the gate. "When I looked over his shoulder a while ago he was with Cicero again. He adores Cicero!"