“Have you?” and his face grew bright. “I will come up—perhaps this evening. Were you planning to go to church?”
“Yes; but I would rather stay at home with you.”
“Even if Stanton goes?”
“Yes.”
He laughed shortly, and with none of the fierce jealousy of former days said: “We shall be good friends, you and I, when I settle down to this darkness.”
“May I read to you sometime?” asked Vivienne.
“How clever you are,” he said. “You have found out that I hate to have any one do anything for me and you want to wheedle me into getting accustomed to it. No, my dear belle-sœur, you shall not read your Bible and psalm books to me.”
Vivienne smiled hopefully. “Sometime you will allow me to do so, and while we wait for that time there are other books. Now I must return to the house. Au revoir, my brother; God will make you happier.”
“There is no God!” he exclaimed.
She looked down at his mocking face and then up at the serene vault of the sky above them. “No God! Valentine; no Creator of the world! I had hoped that by this time you would think differently.”