“And you think the expedition will not get here?” she asked finally, in a dead voice.
“I am positive of it,” I answered, “and for the sake of those who are engaged in it, it is mercifully best that it should not. The day may come,” I added, for the sake of leading her away, “when Kentucky will be strong enough to overrun Louisiana. But not now.”
She turned to me with a trace of her former fierceness.
“Why are you in New Orleans?” she demanded.
A sudden resolution came to me then.
“To bring you back with me to Kentucky,” I answered. She shook her head sadly, but I continued: “I have more to say. I am convinced that neither Nick nor you will be happy until you are mother and son again. You have both been wanderers long enough.”
Once more she turned away and fell into a revery. Over the housetop, from across the street, came the gay music of the fiddler. Mrs. Temple laid her hand gently on my shoulder.
“My dear,” she said, smiling, “I could not live for the journey.”
“You must live for it,” I answered. “You have the will. You must live for it, for his sake.”
She shook her head, and smiled at me with a courage which was the crown of her sufferings.