“I know you can,” answered Angela. “I am not in the least afraid of Yankee bullets or anything like that, but hideous creepy things frighten me horribly;” and she shuddered as she spoke, allowing her hand to remain in Isabey’s. Then came a long silence. Isabey could feel her hand trembling in his. She was not thinking about him, but about the water-snake and the slimy things which terrified her woman’s soul. Isabey had no qualms of conscience in thus holding her hand in his; she was, after all, only a frightened child, and to soothe her fears by a reassuring touch was no defilement of her. Angela, however, could not remain insensible to that touch, and after a while she withdrew her hand, saying, with a long breath: “I will try and not be afraid any more. Isn’t it ridiculous? I have not the least fear of dying or of scarlet fever or runaway horses or anything like that, but I have paroxysms of terror from caterpillars and daddy longlegs and a snake—” She covered her face with her hands as she spoke.
“Come, now,” said Isabey, reassuringly, “there is nothing for either of us to be afraid of; may I smoke?”
“Never,” said Angela, aghast. “You will be seen from the other shore.”
“Oh, no; I can hold my cap before my cigarette, and the distance is too great anyhow for the tip of a cigarette to be seen.” He lighted his cigarette and smoked placidly, holding his cap up meanwhile. The sounds of voices, of rattling sabers, of armed men searching the garden increased. It was evident that a thorough hunt of the garden was being made.
“They are trampling all over your flower beds,” whispered Isabey. “They seem to be looking in the violet bed for me, but as a sleeping place it is not as desirable as the poets have represented.”
“How can you make jokes at this time?” said Angela reproachfully.
“My dearest lady, every soldier has been in far worse places than this. A fighting man must learn to look danger in the eye and advance upon it with a smile. You should see your Stonewall Jackson when the Yankees begin to give us grape in earnest. It is the only time Stonewall ever looks really gay and debonair.”
Isabey went on talking gayly for a time, but Angela, he soon saw, was throbbing with nervous excitement and in no mood to heed his airy conversation. Then he fell silent; the sweet consciousness that she was agitated, palpitating, miserable for him, gave him a feeling of rapture. She was the wife of his friend and sacred to him, but that had not prevented his falling in love with her. And she, the soul of truth and loyalty, was too unsophisticated, too ignorant of the world and of herself, to conceal from him that he was, at least to her imagination, the first man in the world. Her instinctive dignity and good sense made her secret safe from all except Isabey, but he with the prescience of love saw it. He foresaw with calm courage that the time would come when she would learn to love Neville Tremaine—when children would be laid in her arms, and when this dream of her youth would seem only the shadow of a dream. But Isabey felt that it would be among the unforgotten things which sleep but never die in women’s hearts.
An hour passed as they sat together, as much alone as if the world held none other than themselves. Isabey, although conscious of the delicate intoxication of Angela’s nearness, was yet thoroughly alert, while Angela, with every nerve at its utmost tension, was silent and apparently composed. Isabey felt rather than saw that she was profoundly moved. As they listened and watched the opposite shore they could see that the troopers had withdrawn from the garden and that the search for Isabey, which had included the stables and the negro quarters, had been abandoned.
Presently the sound of retreating hoofs was heard, and the detachment, which numbered several hundred, rode off. The hot, still air had grown more inky black, and a dead silence took the place of the commotion in and around the Harrowby house. The negroes had gone off to their quarters, and lights shone only from a single window of the library. Presently the sound of a horse carefully picking his way around the marsh and advancing toward the willow tree was heard, and a step which Angela at once recognized.