"You speak for yourself?"
"Yes, indeed. If I loved, I am afraid I would love blindly, recklessly. It is the way of Montjoy women—and they say I am all Montjoy."
"Would you follow barefooted and in rags from city to city behind a man, drunken and besotted, to sing upon the streets for a crust and sleep under a hedge, his chances your chances, and you with no claim upon him save that you loved him once? I have seen it." She shook her head.
"The man I loved could never sink so low. He would be a gentleman, proud of his name, of his talents, of his honor. If misfortune came he would starve under the first hedge before he would lead me out to face a scornful world. And if it were misfortune only I would sing for him—yes, if necessary, beg, unknown to him for money to help him in misfortune. Only let him keep the manliness within him undimmed by act of his." He gazed into her glowing face.
"I thank you," he said. "I never understood a true woman's heart before."
The express rushed into new and strange scenes. There were battlefields pointed out by the conductor—mere landscapes only the names of which were thrilling. Manassas glided by, the birthplace of a great hope that perished. How often she had heard her father and the general tell of that battle!
And then the white shaft of the Washington monument, and the capitol dome rose in the distance.
As they glided over the long bridge across the Potomac and touched the soil of the capital city and the street lights went past, the young woman viewed the scenes with intense interest. Washington! But for that infamous assault upon her father, through the man who had been by her side, he would have walked the streets again, a Southern congressman!
They took rooms to give the little mamma a good night's rest, and then, with the same unconventional freedom of the hall, Mary wandered out with Edward to view the avenue. They went and stood at the foot of that great white pile which closes one end of the avenue, and were awed into silence by its grandeur.
She would see grander sights, but never one that would impress her more. She thought of her father alone, away back in Georgia, at the old home, sitting just then upon the porch smoking his pipe. Perhaps the Duchess was asleep in his lap, perhaps the general had come over to keep him company, and if so they were talking of the absent ones. Edward saw her little hand lightly laid upon her eyes for a moment, and comprehended.