A twinkle came into Throckmorton’s eye. This was the same Beverley Temple of twenty-five years ago, only a little more magniloquent than ever and a little more under Mrs. Temple’s thumb. Throckmorton, repressing a smile, shook hands cordially.
“Neither of us has any apologies to make, general,” he said. “I think that ugly business is over for good. I feel more friendly toward my own unfortunate people now than ever before. Good-by.”
The general then made a stately ascent into the carriage, banged the door, and rattled off.
Short as the scene had been, it made a deep impression upon Judith Temple. Throckmorton’s dignity—the tender sentiment that he had cherished for his early friends—struck her forcibly. The very tones of his voice, his soldierly carriage, his dark, indomitable eye, were so impressed upon her imagination that, had she never seen him again, she would never have forgotten him. It was an instant and powerful attraction that had made her hold out her hand and smile at him.
Throckmorton, without trying the experiment of hunting up any more old friends, turned to walk home. It was a good four-mile stretch, and usually he stepped out at a smart gait that put Jack to his trumps to keep up with. But to-day he sauntered along so slowly, through the woods and fields with his hat over his eyes and his hands behind him, that Jack lost patience and struck off ahead, leaving Throckmorton alone, much to his relief.
Throckmorton wanted to think it all over. In his heart there was not one grain of resentment toward Mrs. Temple. He thought he understood the workings of her strong but simple nature perfectly well, and he did not doubt the ultimate goodness of her heart. And General Temple—Throckmorton had heard something of the general’s magnificent incapacity during the war—the bare idea of General Temple as a commander made him laugh. How sweet were Mrs. Beverley’s eyes, and how demure she looked when she dropped them at some particularly solemn absurdity of the clergyman, as if she were afraid somebody would see the tell-tale gleam in them! The little girl, though, was the most fascinating creature he had seen for long. How strangely and how pitifully altered was the congregation of Severn church from the merry prosperous country gentry he remembered so long ago! And how quiet, how still was life there! All his usual every-day life was shut out from him. Within the circle of that perfect repose nothing disquieting could come. He stopped in the country lane and listened. Nothing broke the solemn calm except the droning of the locusts in the September noon. Warm as it was, there was a hint of autumn in the atmosphere. Occasionally the clarion cry of a hawk circling in the blue air pierced the silence.
“This, then, is peace,” said Throckmorton to himself, and thought of the year of idleness and repose before him. “Nothing ever happens here,” he continued, thinking. “Even the tragedy of the war was at a distance. As Mrs. Temple says, the men went forth, and those that came back will go forth no more.”
Then he began to think over the way in which the people had completely ignored him in the churchyard, where they stopped and gossiped with each other, eying him askance. He knew perfectly well the estimate they put upon him. He could have supplied the very word—“traitor.” This made him feel a sort of bitterness, which he consoled with the reflection—
“Most men of principle have to suffer for those principles at some time or other.”