"I am waiting for Clarence, Mr. Brice. He was here, and is gone somewhere."
He did not seem to take account of the speech. And his silence—goad to indiscretion—pressed her to add:— "You saved him, Mr. Brice. I—we all —thank you so much. And that is not all I want to say. It is a poor enough acknowledgment of what you did,—for we have not always treated you well." Her voice faltered almost to faintness, as he raised his hand in pained protest. But she continued: "I shall regard it as a debt I can never repay. It is not likely that in my life to come I can ever help you, but I shall pray for that opportunity."
He interrupted her.
"I did nothing, Miss Carvel, nothing that the most unfeeling man in our army would not do. Nothing that I would not have done for the merest stranger."
"You saved him for me," she said.
O fateful words that spoke of themselves! She turned away from him for very shame, and yet she heard him saying:— "Yes, I saved him for you."
His voice was in the very note of the sadness which has the strength to suffer, to put aside the thought of self. A note to which her soul responded with anguish when she turned to him with the natural cry of woman.
"Oh, you ought not to have come here to-night. Why did you come? The
Doctor forbade it. The consequences may kill you."
"It does not matter much," he answered. "The Judge was dying."
"How did you know?"