She made no reply. The old feeling, the overwhelming force of the man, made her cheek white and her heart faint. She held out her hands.
He took her—before all those witnesses—in his arms, and kissed her on the forehead. ‘Stay with us, my darling,’ he whispered; ‘cast in your lot with mine.’
She had no power to resist, none to refuse. She was conquered; Man was stronger than Woman.
‘Children,’ said the Bishop solemnly, ‘you shall not die, but live.’
Constance started. She knew not this kind of language, which was borrowed from the Books of the Ancient Faith.
‘There are many things,’ said the Bishop, ‘of which you know not yet, Lady Carlyon. After to-morrow we will instruct you. Meantime it is late; the Chief has business; I would be alone. Go you with my daughters and rest, if you can, until the morning.’
The very atmosphere seemed strange to Constance: the young men in authority, the women submissive; this old man speaking as if he were a learned divine, reverend, grave, and accustomed to be heard; and, outside, the voices of men ringing, of arms clashing, of music playing,—all the noise of a camp before it settles into rest for the night.
‘Can they,’ Constance whispered to Grace Ingleby, looking round her outside the tent—‘will they dare to fight these terrible and cruel Convict Wardens?’
‘Oh, Lady Carlyon!’ Grace replied, ‘you do not know, you cannot guess, what wonderful things Lord Chester has done with the men in the last fortnight. From poor, obedient slaves, he has made them men indeed.’
‘Men!’ Constance saw that she could not understand the word in the sense to which she had been accustomed.