Never before in all his military career had he
been so comforted by a sudden cessation of fighting. His soul
would grovel in spite of him. Alice's cold face now had Beverley's
beside it in his field of inner vision--a double assurance of
impending doom, it seemed to him.
There was short delay in the arrival of Colonel Clark's reply,
hastily scrawled on a bit of soiled paper. The request for a truce
was flatly refused; but the note closed thus:
"If Mr. Hamilton is Desirous of a Conferance with Col. Clark he
will meet him at the Church with Captn. Helms."
The spelling was not very good, and there was a redundancy of
capital letters; yet Hamilton understood it all; and it was very
difficult for him to conceal his haste to attend the proposed
conference. But he was afraid to go to the church--the thought
chilled him. He could not face Father Beret, who would probably be
there. And what if there should be evidences of the funeral?--what
if?--he shuddered and tried to break away from the vision in his
tortured brain.
He sent a proposition to Clark to meet him on the esplanade before
the main gate of the fort; but Clark declined, insisting upon the
church. And thither he at last consented to go. It was an immense
brace to his spirit to have Helm beside him during that walk,
which, although but eighty yards in extent, seemed to him a matter
of leagues.
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