"Oh, sir, there needed no Gospel light to show me so plain a course. Your wife was alone, while you were fighting for your country. I promised years ago to be her friend. Could there be any question as to my duty?"
"'Twill need all my future life to prove my gratitude."
"You have left the army?"
"Yes. I resigned my commission after Quebec."
"You were at the taking of Quebec, then? I thought you were with Amherst when he recovered Ticonderoga."
"So I was, madam. But after we took the fort I was entrusted to carry a letter for General Wolfe conveying General Amherst's plans. 'Twas a difficult journey, by a circuitous route, and I was more than a month on the way; but I was in time to be in the escalade and the battle. It was glorious—a glorious tragedy. England and France lost two of the finest leaders that ever soldier followed—Montcalm and Wolfe. Alas! shall I ever forget James Wolfe's spectral face in the grey of that fatal morning? He was fitter to be lying on a sick-bed than to be commanding an army. He looked a ghost, and fought like the god of war."
"Shall you go back to your work with Mr. Wesley?"
"If he will have me—and, indeed, I think he will, for he needs helpers. 'Tis in his army—the evangelical army—I shall fight henceforward. I stand alone in the world now, for my son's welfare could scarce be better assured than with his grandmother, who offers to provide his education, and is likely to make him her heir. My experience in Georgia renewed my self-confidence, and I doubt I may yet be of some use to my fellow-creatures."
"You could scarce fail in that," she answered gently. "I remember how those poor wretches at Lambeth loved you."
Her voice was unaltered. It had all that grave music he remembered of old, when she spoke of serious things. It soothed him to sit in the darkness and hear her talk, and he dreaded the coming of light that would break the spell.