--no";
then, still clinging to him, she slipped to her knees and so to her
face, and lay there in a swoon in the red zone of the firelight.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE BROTHERS

At Fontenoy the deluging rain and pitchy blackness of the night
sufficiently warranted Colonel Dick's assertion that it was an evening
for a sensible man to stay where he was, and that a bowl of punch and
wedding-talk and Unity at the harpsichord were to be preferred to a
progress to Greenwood through such a downpour and a foot of mud.
Ludwell!--Ludwell wouldn't be there anyway. He was a man of sense and
would be sleeping at Red Fields, if indeed he had ever left Malplaquet.
Fairfax Cary was persuaded, and after a very happy evening in the
drawing-room, went to bed and to sleep in the blue room.

Dressing, next morning, he gazed around him. The room was familiar to
him, and he had a liking for it, from the mandarin on the screen to
General Washington on the wall. The storm had passed away early in the
night, and it was now a lovely morning, clear-washed, fresh, and
fragrant. He looked out of the window toward the blue hills, and down
into the garden where autumn flowers were in bloom, and as he dressed he
hummed an air that Unity had sung.

"Give me pleasure, give me pain,
Give me wine of life again!
Death is night without a morn,
Give the rose and give the thorn."

Downstairs he found Miss Dandridge and Major Edward upon the wide porch.
The wind had torn away a great bough from one of the poplars, and
Colonel Dick and Deb upon the drive below were superintending its
removal. Birds were singing, delicate airs astir. "It's going to be the
divinest day!" said Unity, and led the way to the dining-room.

Breakfast went happily on with talk of politics, county affairs, and now
and then from Colonel Dick a sly allusion to the approaching marriage.
The meal was nearly over when old Cato, coming in from the hail, said
something in a low voice to his master. Colonel Churchill pushed back
his chair. "Excuse me a moment, Unity, my dear. There's a man wants to
see me."

He left the room. Fairfax Cary and Major Edward continued a discussion
of the latest Napoleonic victory; Unity played with her spoon and
thought of her wedding-gown; Deb drank her glass of milk and planned a
visit with Miranda to a blasted pine tree, lived in, all the quarter
agreed, by a ha'nt that came out at night, like a ring of smoke out of a
great black