The man smiled reassuringly and slipped his hand, as a child might, into that of the old man.
"A-l-i-c-e"--he slowly and stutteringly pronounced again, as he pointed down the road toward Westmoreland.
"My God," said the Bishop as he wiped away the tears on the back of his hand--"my God, but that blow has spiled God's noblest gentleman." Then there rushed over him a wave of self-reproach as he raised his head heavenward and said:
"_Almighty Father, forgive me! Only this morning I doubted You; and now, now, You have sent me po' Cap'n Tom!_"
"You'll go home with me, Cap'n Tom!" he added cheerily.
There was the sound of some one riding, and as the Bishop turned Ben Butler around Alice Westmore rode up, sitting her saddle mare with that natural grace which comes only when the horse and rider have been friends long enough to become as one. Richard Travis rode with her.
The Bishop paled again: "My God," he muttered--"but she mustn't know this is Cap'n Tom! I'd ruther she'd think he's dead--to remember him only as she knowed him last."
The man's eyes were riveted on her--they seemed to devour her as she rode up, a picture of grace and beauty, sitting her cantering mare with the ease of long years of riding. She smiled and nodded brightly at the Bishop, as she cantered past, but scarcely glanced at the man beside him.
"Hello, Bishop," he said banteringly--"got a new boarder to-day?"
He glanced at the man as he spoke, and then galloped on without turning his head.
"Alice!--Alice!"--whispered the man, holding out his hands pleadingly, in the way he had held them when he first saw the Bishop. "Alice!"--but she disappeared behind a turn in the road. She had not noticed him.
"We'll go home, Cap'n Tom--you'll want for nothin' whilst I live. An' who knows--ay, Cap'n Tom, who knows but maybe God has sent you here to-day to begin the unraveling of the only injustice I've ever knowed Him to let go so long. It 'ud be so easy for Him--He's done bigger things than jes' to straighten out little tangles like that. Cap'n Tom! Cap'n Tom!" he said excitedly--"God'll do it--God'll do it--for He is just!"
As he turned to go a negro came up hurriedly: "I was fetchin' him to you, Marse Hillard--been lookin' for yo' home all day. I had gone to the spring for water an' 'lowed I'd be back in a minute."