第70章

Clay straightened himself unconsciously, and stepped beside her and took her hand; MacWilliams quickly lowered to the bench the dish from which he was eating, and stood up, too.The people of the house stared at the group in the firelight with puzzled interest, at the beautiful young girl, and at the tall, sunburned young man at her side.Langham looked from his sister to Clay and back again, and laughed uneasily.

``Langham, I have been very bold,'' said Clay.``I have asked your sister to marry me--and she has said that she would.''

Langham flushed as red as his sister.He felt himself at a disadvantage in the presence of a love as great and strong as he knew this must be.It made him seem strangely young and inadequate.He crossed over to his sister awkwardly and kissed her, and then took Clay's hand, and the three stood together and looked at one another, and there was no sign of doubt or question in the face of any one of them.They stood so for some little time, smiling and exclaiming together, and utterly unconscious of anything but their own delight and happiness.MacWilliams watched them, his face puckered into odd wrinkles and his eyes half-closed.Hope suddenly broke away from the others and turned toward him with her hands held out.

``Have you nothing to say to me, Mr.MacWilliams?'' she asked.

MacWilliams looked doubtfully at Clay, as though from force of habit he must ask advice from his chief first, and then took the hands that she held out to him and shook them up and down.His usual confidence seemed to have forsaken him, and he stood, shifting from one foot to the other, smiling and abashed.

``Well, I always said they didn't make them any better than you,'' he gasped at last.``I was always telling him that, wasn't I?'' He nodded energetically at Clay.``And that's so;they don't make 'em any better than you.''

He dropped her hands and crossed over to Clay, and stood surveying him with a smile of wonder and admiration.

``How'd you do it?'' he demanded.``How did you do it? Isuppose you know,'' he asked sternly, ``that you're not good enough for Miss Hope? You know that, don't you?''

``Of course I know that,'' said Clay.

MacWilliams walked toward the door and stood in it for a second, looking back at them over his shoulder.``They don't make them any better than that,'' he reiterated gravely, and disappeared in the direction of the horses, shaking his head and muttering his astonishment and delight.

``Please give me some money,'' Hope said to Clay.``All the money you have,'' she added, smiling at her presumption of authority over him, ``and you, too, Ted.'' The men emptied their pockets, and Hope poured the mass of silver into the hands of the women, who gazed at it uncomprehendingly.

``Thank you for your trouble and your good supper,'' Hope said in Spanish, ``and may no evil come to your house.''

The woman and her daughters followed her to the carriage, bowing and uttering good wishes in the extravagant metaphor of their country; and as they drove away, Hope waved her hand to them as she sank closer against Clay's shoulder.

``The world is full of such kind and gentle souls,'' she said.

In an hour they had regained the main road, and a little later the stars grew dim and the moonlight faded, and trees and bushes and rocks began to take substance and to grow into form and outline.They saw by the cool, gray light of the morning the familiar hills around the capital, and at a cry from the boys on the box-seat, they looked ahead and beheld the harbor of Valencia at their feet, lying as placid and undisturbed as the water in a bath-tub.As they turned up the hill into the road that led to the Palms, they saw the sleeping capital like a city of the dead below them, its white buildings reddened with the light of the rising sun.From three places in different parts of the city, thick columns of smoke rose lazily to the sky.

``I had forgotten!'' said Clay; ``they have been having a revolution here.It seems so long ago.''

By five o'clock they had reached the gate of the Palms, and their appearance startled the sentry on post into a state of undisciplined joy.A riderless pony, the one upon which Jose'

had made his escape when the firing began, had crept into the stable an hour previous, stiff and bruised and weary, and had led the people at the Palms to fear the worst.

Mr.Langham and his daughter were standing on the veranda as the horses came galloping up the avenue.They had been awake all the night, and the face of each was white and drawn with anxiety and loss of sleep.Mr.Langham caught Hope in his arms and held her face close to his in silence.

``Where have you been?'' he said at last.``Why did you treat me like this? You knew how I would suffer.''

``I could not help it,'' Hope cried.``I had to go with Madame Alvarez.''

Her sister had suffered as acutely as had Mr.Langham himself, as long as she was in ignorance of Hope's whereabouts.But now that she saw Hope in the flesh again, she felt a reaction against her for the anxiety and distress she had caused them.

``My dear Hope,'' she said, ``is every one to be sacrificed for Madame Alvarez? What possible use could you be to her at such a time? It was not the time nor the place for a young girl.You were only another responsibility for the men.''

``Clay seemed willing to accept the responsibility,'' said Langham, without a smile.``And, besides,'' he added, ``if Hope had not been with us we might never have reached home alive.''

But it was only after much earnest protest and many explanations that Mr.Langham was pacified, and felt assured that his son's wound was not dangerous, and that his daughter was quite safe.

Miss Langham and himself, he said, had passed a trying night.

There had been much firing in the city, and continual uproar.