Then she rose and approached the little group by the window. Her eyes, resting on the firmly clasped hands of the lovers, snapped fire. Her face, again, was granite. To Dr. Cassiri, very quietly, she remarked, “Take Betty up-stairs, please.”
The physician, obeying, made a gentle effort to draw the girl away; but met with no success.
Mrs. Boatwright addressed herself to Brachey: “Will you please leave this compound at once!”
He said nothing. Betty's fingers were twisting within his.
“I can hardly make use of force,” continued Mrs. Boatwright, “but I ask you to leave us. And we do not wish to see you again.”
Brachey drew in a slow long breath: looked about the room, from one to another. Miss Hemphill and Boatwright had risen; both were watching him; the little man seemed to have found his courage, for his chin was up now.
And Brachey felt, knew, that they were a unit against him. The fellow-feeling, the community of faith and habit that had drawn them together through long, lonely years of service, was stronger now than any mere threat of danger, even of death. They felt with the indomitable woman who had grown into the leadership, and would stay with her.
Brachey surveyed them. These were the missionaries he had despised as weak, narrow little souls. Narrow they might be, but hardly weak. No, not weak. Even this curious little Boatwright; something that looked like strength had come to life in him. He wouldn't desert. He would stay. To certain and horrible death, apparently. The very certainty of the danger seemed to be clearing that wavering little mind of his. A thought that made it all the more puzzling was that these people knew, so much better, so much more deeply, than he, all that had happened in 1900. Their own friends and pupils—white and yellow—had been slaughtered. The heart-breaking task of reconstruction had been theirs.
And at the same time, seeming like a thought-strand in his brain, was the heart-breaking pressure of that soft, honest little hand in his.... Very likely it was the end for all of them.
“Very well,” he said icily. “I am sorry I can't be of use. However, if any of you care to go I shall esteem it a privilege to share my caravan with you.”