All the other passions in his face had settled into one cruel cynical smile around his mouth—a smile of winning or of death.
For the first time in her life she feared Richard Travis.
“I must go now,” said Alice Westmore to the old men—“but I'll sing you a verse or two.”
The overseer leaned back in his chair. Uncle Bisco stooped forward, his chin resting on his hickory staff.
And then like the clear notes of a spring, dripping drop by drop with a lengthening cadence into the covered pool of a rock-lined basin, came a simple Sunday School song the two old men loved so well.
There were tears in the old negro's eyes when she had finished. Then he sobbed like a child.
Alice Westmore arose to go.
“Now, Bishop—” she smiled at the overseer—“don't keep Uncle Bisco up all night talking about the war, and if you don't come by the house and chat with mamma and me awhile, we'll be jealous.”
The overseer looked up: “Miss Alice—I'm an ole man an' we ole men all dream dreams when night comes. Moods come over us and, look where we will, it all leads back to the sweet paths of the past. To-day—all day—my mind has been on”—he stopped, afraid to pronounce the word and hunting around in the scanty lexicon of his mind for some phase of speech, some word even that might not awaken in Alice Westmore memories of the past.
Richard Travis had an intuition of things as naturally as an eagle has the homing instinct, however high in air and beyond all earth's boundaries he flies. In this instance Mrs. Westmore also had it, for she looked up quickly at the man beside her. All the other emotions had vanished from his face save the one appealing look which said: “Come, let us go—we have heard enough.”