should be premier he mused, studying Elizabeth,--stranger things had
happened--what a help a wife like this would be to him; her pride,
her self-control, her graciousness, her wit would then come into play
excellently. She belonged to him by right, and----. Again there came
that ominous flash in his eyes as they turned furtively in another
direction, and the shadow that lurked in his heart leaped forward again
and clutched at its victim. Then Edmonson turned with a smile to Colonel
Pepperell beside him, and asked some further particulars about the
hostility of the Indian tribes.

Archdale, glancing at Elizabeth, saw that she looked extremely well.
He was grateful for her courage and her helpfulness, and he understood
better than she dreamed of his doing the distress that the present state
of affairs caused her. He liked her in a spirit of comradeship. She
seemed to him sensitive, yet he felt that in an emergency she would
prove as strong to act as to endure. In no case, he told himself, could
he ever be in love with her; she was too cold, too intellectual, she had
not enough softness or sweetness to charm him even if his fair cousin
had never existed. But when there was need of a woman with pride and
resolution enough to deny strenuously the force of a marriage ceremony
that had never been intended, nobody could answer the need better than
Mistress Royal. And it really was not necessary for that purpose that
she should feel him such an ogre as he believed she did. However, that
was of no consequence. He brought himself back forcibly from a gloomy
study of possibilities. There was enough for a man to do in this new
world if love were denied him. He began to talk to those next him about
the war already going on at the North.

"Young Archdale has caught the infection," said Pepperell, soon after to
his listener. "He will be in harness before we know it." Edmonson smiled