"Did he tell you?" her father demanded. "No."
"My God," cried the Colonel, in agony, "to think that he kept it from me
I to think that Lige kept it from me!"
"It is because he loves you, Pa," answered the girl, gently, "it is because he loves us."
He said nothing to that. Virginia got up, and went softly around the table. She leaned over his shoulder. "Pa!"
"Yes," he said, his voice lifeless.
But her courage was not to be lightly shaken. "Pa, will you forbid him to come here—now?"
A long while she waited for his answer, while the big clock ticked out the slow seconds in the hall, and her heart beat wildly.
"No," said the Colonel. "As long as I have a roof, Lige may come under it."
He rose abruptly and seized his bat. She did not ask him where he was going, but ordered Jackson to keep the supper warm, and went into the drawing-room. The lights were out, then, but the great piano that was her mother's lay open. Her fingers fell upon the keys. That wondrous hymn which Judge Whipple loved, which for years has been the comfort of those in distress, floated softly with the night air out of the open window. It was "Lead, Kindly Light." Colonel Carvel heard it, and paused.
Shall we follow him?