Chapter 18

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_ CHAPTER XVIII

It was still dark when he awoke with a violent start, dreaming of loud trumpets, and found himself sitting upright on his cot, staring into obscurity.

Outside on the veranda a multitude of heavy steps echoed and re-echoed over the creaking boards; spurs clinked, sabres dragged and clanked; a man's harsh, nasal voice sounded irritably at intervals:

"We're not an army--we're not yet an army; that's what's the matter. You can't erect an army by uniforming and drilling a few hundred thousand clerks and farmers. You can't manufacture an army by brigading regiments--by creating divisions and forming army corps. There is only one thing on God's long-enduring earth that can transform this mob of State troops into a National army--discipline!--and that takes time; and we've got to take it and let experience kick us out of one battle into another. And some day we'll wake up to find ourselves a real army, with real departments, really controlled and in actual and practical working order. Now it's every department for itself and God help General McClellan! He has my sympathy! He has a dirty job on his hands half done, and they won't let him finish it!"

And again the same impatient voice broke out contemptuously:

"War? These two years haven't been two years of war! They've been two years of a noisy, gaudy, rough and tumble! Bull Run was _opera bouffe_! The rest of it has been one fantastic and bloody carnival! Did anybody ever before see such a grandmother's rag bag of uniforms in an American army! What in hell do we want of zouaves in French uniforms, cavalry, armed with Austrian lances, ridiculous rocket-batteries, Polish riders, Hungarian hussars, grenadiers, mounted rifles, militia and volunteers in every garb, carrying every arm ever created by foreign armourers and military tailors! . . . But I rather guess that the fancy-dress-ball era is just about over. I've a notion that we're coming down to the old-fashioned army blue again. And the sooner the better. I want no more red fezzes and breeches in my commands for the enemy to blaze at a mile away! I want no more picturesque lances. I want plain blue pants and Springfield rifles, by God! And I guess I'll get them, if I make noise enough in North America!"

Who this impassioned military critic was, shouting opinions to the sky, Berkley never learned; for presently there was a great jingling and clatter and trample of horses brought around, and the officers, whoever they were, mounted and departed as they had arrived, in darkness, leaving Berkley on his cot in the storehouse to stretch his limbs, and yawn and stretch again, and draw the warm folds of the blanket closer, and lie blinking at the dark, through which, now, a bird had begun to twitter a sweet, fitful salute to the coming dawn.

Across the foot of his couch lay folded an invalid's red hospital wrapper; beside his bed stood the slippers. After a few moments he rose, stepped into the slippers, and, drawing on the woolen robe, belted it in about his thin waist. Then he limped out to the veranda.

In the dusk the bird sang timidly. Berkley could just make out the outlines of the nearer buildings, and of tall trees around. Here and there lights burned behind closed windows; but, except for these, the world was black and still; stiller for the deadened stamping of horses in distant unseen stalls.

An unmistakable taint of the hospital hung in the fresh morning air--a vague hint of anaesthetics, of cooking--the flat odour of sickness and open wounds.

Lanterns passed in the darkness toward the stables; unseen shapes moved hither and thither, their footsteps sharply audible. He listened and peered about him for a while, then went back to the store-room, picked his way among the medical supplies, and sat down on the edge of his bed.

A few moments later he became aware of somebody moving on the veranda, and of a light outside; heard his door open, lifted his dazzled eyes in the candle rays.

"Are you here, Philip?" came a quiet, tired voice. "You must wake, now, and dress. Colonel Arran is conscious and wishes to see you."

"Ailsa! Good God!"

She stood looking at him placidly, the burning candle steady in her hand, her; face very white and thin.

He had risen, standing there motionless in his belted invalid's robe with the stencilled S. C. on the shoulder. And now he would have gone to her, hands outstretched, haggard face joyously illumined; but she stepped back with a swift gesture that halted him; and in her calm, unfriendly gaze he hesitated, bewildered, doubting his senses.

"Ailsa, dear, is anything wrong?"

"I think," she said quietly, "that we had better not let Colonel Arran see how wrong matters have gone between us. He is very badly hurt. I have talked a little with him. I came here because he asked for you and for no other reason."

"Did you know I was here?"

"I saw you arrive last night--from the infirmary window. . . . I hope your wound is healed," she added in a strained voice.

"Ailsa! What has happened?"

She shuddered slightly, looked at, him without a shadow of expression.

"Let us understand one another now. I haven't the slightest atom of--regard--left for you. I have no desire to see you, to hear of you again while I am alive. That is final."

"Will you tell me why?"

She had turned to go; now she hesitated, silent, irresolute.

"Will you tell me, Ailsa?"

She said, wearily: "If you insist, I can make it plainer, some time. But this is not the time. . . And you had better not ask me at all, Philip."

"I do ask you."

"I warn you to accept your dismissal without seeking an explanation. It would spare--us both."

"I will spare neither of us. What has changed you?"

"I shall choose my own convenience to answer you," she replied haughtily.

"Choose it, then, and tell me when to expect your explanation."

"When I send for you; not before."

"Are you going to let me go away with that for my answer?"

"Perhaps."

He hooked his thumbs in his girdle and looked down, considering; then, quietly raising his head:

"I don't know what you have found out--what has been told you. I have done plenty of things in my life unworthy of you, but I thought you knew that."

"I know it now."

"You knew it before. I never attempted to conceal anything."

A sudden blue glimmer made her eyes brilliant. "That is a falsehood!" she said deliberately. The colour faded from his cheeks, then he said with ashy composure:

"I lie much less than the average man, Ailsa. It is nothing to boast of, but it happens to be true. I don't lie."

"You keep silent and act a lie!"

He reflected for a moment; then:

"Hadn't you better tell me?"

"No."

Then his colour returned, surging, making the scar on his face hideous; he turned, walked to the window, and stood looking into the darkness while the departing glimmer of her candle faded on the wall behind him.

Presently, scraping, ducking, chuckling, the old darky appeared with his boots and uniform, everything dry and fairly clean; and he dressed by lantern light, buckled his belt, drew on his gloves, settled his forage cap, and followed the old man out into the graying dawn.

They gave him some fresh light bread and a basin of coffee; he finished and waited, teeth biting the stem of his empty pipe for which he had no tobacco.

Surgeons, assistant surgeons, contract physicians, ward-masters, nurses, passed and re-passed; stretchers filed into the dead house; coffins were being unloaded and piled under a shed; a constant stream of people entered and left the apothecary's office; the Division Medical Director's premises were besieged. Ambulances continually drove up or departed; files of sick and wounded, able to move without assistance, stood in line, patient, uncomplaining men, bloody, ragged, coughing, burning with fever, weakened for lack of nourishment; many crusted with filth and sometimes with vermin, humbly awaiting the disposition of their battered, half-dead bodies. . . .

The incipient stages of many diseases were plainly apparent among them. Man after man was placed on a stretcher, and hurried off to the contagious wards; some were turned away and directed to other hospitals, and they went without protest, dragging their gaunt legs, even attempting some feeble jest as they passed their wretched comrades whose turns had not yet come.

Presently a hospital servant came and took Berkley away to another building. The wards were where the schoolrooms had been. Blackboards still decorated the wall; a half-erased exercise in Latin remained plainly visible over the rows of cots.

Ailsa and the apothecary stood together in low-voiced conversation by a window. She merely raised her eyes when Berkley entered; then, without giving him a second glance, continued her conversation.

In the heavy, ether-laden atmosphere flies swarmed horribly, and men detailed as nurses from regimental companies were fanning them from helpless patients. A civilian physician, coming down the aisle, exchanged a few words with the ward-master and then turned to Berkley.

"You are trooper Ormond, orderly to Colonel Arran?"

"Yes."

"Colonel Arran desires you to remain here at his orders for the present."

"Is Colonel Arran likely to recover, doctor?"

"He is in no immediate danger."

"May I see him?"

"Certainly. He sent for you. Step this way."

They entered another and much smaller ward in which there were very few cots, and from which many of the flies had been driven.

Colonel Arran lay very white and still on his cot; only his eyes turned as Berkley came up and stood at salute.

"Sit down," he said feebly. And, after a long silence:

"Berkley, the world seems to be coming right. I am grateful that I--lie here--with you beside me."

Berkley's throat closed; he could not speak; nor did he know what he might have said could he have spoken, for within him all had seemed to crash softly into chaos, and he had no mind, no will, no vigour, only a confused understanding of emotion and pain, and a fierce longing.

Colonel Arran's sunken eyes never left his, watching, wistful, patient. And at last the boy bent forward and rested his elbows on his knees and dropped his face in both hands. Time ebbed away in silence; there was no sound in the ward save the blue flies' buzz or the slight movement of some wounded man easing his tortured body.

"Philip!"

The boy lifted his face from his hands.

"Can you forgive me?"

"Yes, I have. . . . There was only one thing to forgive. I don't count--myself."

"I count it--bitterly."

"You need not. . . . It was only--my mother----"

"I know, my boy. The blade of justice is double-edged. No mortal can wield it safely; only He who forged it. . . . I have never ceased to love--your mother."

Berkley's face became ashen.

Colonel Arran said: "Is there punishment more terrible than that for any man?"

Presently Berkley drew his chair closer.

"I wish you to know how mother died," he said simply. "It is your right to know. . . . Because, there will come a time when she and--you will be together again . . . if you believe such things."

"I believe."

For a while the murmur of Berkley's voice alone broke the silence. Colonel Arran lay with eyes closed, a slight flush on his sunken cheeks; and, before long, Berkley's hand lay over his and remained there.

The brilliant, ominous flies whirled overhead or drove headlong against the window-panes, falling on their backs to kick and buzz and scramble over the sill; slippered attendants moved softly along the aisle with medicines; once the ward-master came and looked down at Colonel Arran, touched the skin of his face, his pulse, and walked noiselessly away. Berkley's story had already ended.

After a while he said: "If you will get well--whatever I am--we two men have in common a memory that can never die. If there were nothing else--God knows whether there is--that memory is enough, to make us live at peace with one another. . . . I do not entirely understand how it is with me, but I know that some things have been washed out of my heart--leaving little of the bitterness--nothing now of anger. It has all been too sad for such things--a tragedy too deep for the lesser passions to meddle with. . . . Let us forgive each other. . . . She will know it, somehow."

Their hands slowly closed together and remained.

"Philip!"

"Sir?"

"Ailsa is here."

"Yes, sir."

"Will you say to her that I would like to see her?"

For a moment Berkley hesitated, then rose quietly and walked into the adjoining ward.

Ailsa was bending over a sick man, fanning away the flies that clustered around the edge of the bowl from which he was drinking. And Berkley waited until the patient had finished the broth.

"Ailsa, may I speak to you a moment?"

She had been aware of his entrance, and was not startled. She handed the bowl and fan to an attendant, turned leisurely, and came out into the aisle.

"What is it?"

"Colonel Arran wishes to see you. Can you come?"

"Certainly."

She led the way; and as she walked he noticed that all the lithe grace, all the youth and spring to her step had vanished. She moved wearily; her body under the gray garb was thin; blue veins showed faintly in temple and wrist; only her superb hair and eyes had suffered no change.

Colonel Arran's eyes opened as she stooped at his bedside and laid her lips lightly on his forehead.

"Is there another chair?" he asked wearily.

Ailsa's glance just rested on Berkley, measuring him in expressionless disdain. Then, as he brought another chair, she seated herself.

"You, too, Philip," murmured the wounded man.

Ailsa's violet eyes opened in surprise at the implied intimacy between these men whom she had vaguely understood were anything but friends. But she remained coldly aloof, controlling even a shiver of astonishment when Colonel Arran's hand, which held hers, groped also for Berkley's, and found it.

Then with an effort he turned his head and looked at them.

"I have long known that you loved each other," he whispered. "It is a happiness that God sends me as well as you. If it be His will that I--do not recover, this makes it easy for me. If He wills it that I live, then, in His infinite mercy, He also gives me the reason for living."

Icy cold, Ailsa's hand lay there, limply touching Berkley's; the sick man's eyes were upon them.

"Philip!"

"Sir?"

"My watch is hanging from a nail on the wall. There is a chamois bag hanging with it. Give--it--to me."

And when it lay in his hand he picked at the string, forced it open, drew out a key, and laid it in Berkley's hand with a faint smile.

"You remember, Philip?"

"Yes, sir."

The wounded man looked at Ailsa wistfully.

"It is the key to my house, dear. One day, please God, you and Philip will live there." . . . He closed his eyes, groping for both their hands, and retaining them, lay silent as though asleep.

Berkley's palm burned against hers; she never stirred, never moved a muscle, sitting there as though turned to stone. But when the wounded man's frail grasp relaxed, cautiously, silently, she freed her fingers, rose, looked down, listening to his breathing, then, without a glance at Berkley, moved quietly toward the door.

He was behind her a second later, and she turned to confront him in the corridor lighted by a single window.

"Will you tell me what has changed you?" he said.

"Something which that ghastly farce cannot influence!" she said, hot faced, eyes brilliant with anger. "I loved Colonel Arran enough to endure it--endure your touch--which shames--defiles--which--which outrages every instinct in me!"

Breathless, scornful, she drew back, still facing him.

"The part you have played in my life!" she said bitterly--"think it over. Remember what you have been toward me from the first--a living insult! And when you remember--all--remember that in spite of _all_ I--I loved you--stood before you in the rags of my pride--all that you had left me to clothe myself!--stood upright, unashamed, and acknowledged that I loved you!"

She made a hopeless gesture.

"Oh, you had all there was of my heart! I gave it; I laid it beside my pride, under your feet. God knows what madness was upon me--and you had flung my innocence into my face! And you had held me in your embrace, and looked me in the eyes, and said you would not marry me. And I still loved you!"

Her hands flew to her breast, higher, clasped against the full, white throat.

"Now, have I not dragged my very soul naked under your eyes? Have I not confessed enough. What more do you want of me before you consent to keep your distance and trouble me no more?"

"I want to know what has angered you against me," he said quietly.

She set her teeth and stared at him, with beautiful resolute eyes.

"Before I answer that," she said, "I demand to know why you refused to marry me."

"I cannot tell you, Ailsa."

In a white rage she whispered:

"No, you dare not tell me!--you coward! I had to learn the degrading reason from others!"

He grew deathly white, caught her arms in a grasp of steel, held her twisting wrists imprisoned.

"Do you know what you are saying?" he stammered.

"Yes, I know! Your cruelty--your shame----"

"Be silent!" he said between his teeth. "My shame is my pride! Do you understand!"

Outraged, quivering all over, she twisted out of his grasp.

"Then go to her!" she whispered. "Why don't you go to her?"

And, as his angry eyes became blank:

"Don't you understand? She is there--just across the road!" She flung open the window and pointed with shaking anger.

"Didn't anybody tell you she is there? Then I'll tell you. Now go to her! You are--worthy--of one another!"

"Of whom are you speaking--in God's name!" he breathed.

Panting, flushed, flat against the wall, she looked back out of eyes that had become dark and wide, fumbling in the bosom of her gray garb. And, just where the scarlet heart was stitched across her breast, she drew out a letter, and, her fascinated gaze still fixed on him, extended her arm.

He took the crumpled sheets from her in a dazed sort of way, but did not look at them.

"_Who_ is there--across the road?" he repeated stupidly.

"Ask--Miss--Lynden."

"Letty!"

But she suddenly turned and slipped swiftly past him, leaving him there in the corridor by the open window, holding the letter in his hand.

For a while he remained there, leaning against the wall. Sounds from the other ward came indistinctly--a stifled cry, a deep groan, the hurried tread of feet, the opening or closing of windows. Once a dreadful scream rang out from a neighbouring ward, where a man had suddenly gone insane; and he could hear the sounds of the struggle, the startled orders, the shrieks, the crash of a cot; then the dreadful uproar grew fainter, receding. He roused himself, passed an unsteady hand across his eyes, looked blindly at the letter, saw only a white blurr, and, crushing it in his clenched fist, he went down the kitchen stairs and out across the road.

A hospital guard stopped him, but on learning who he was and that he had business with Miss Lynden, directed him toward a low, one-storied, stone structure, where, under the trees, a figure wrapped in a shawl lay asleep in a chair.

"She's been on duty all night," observed the guard. "If you've got to speak to her, go ahead."

"Yes," said Berkley in a dull voice, "I've got to speak to her." And he walked toward her across the dead brown grass.

Letty's head lay on a rough pine table; her slim body, supported by a broken chair, was covered by a faded shawl; and, as he looked down at her, somehow into his memory came the recollection of the first time he ever saw her so--asleep in Casson's rooms, her childish face on the table, the room reeking with tobacco smoke and the stale odour of wine and dying flowers.

He stood for a long while beside her, looking down at the thin, pale face. Then, in pity, he turned away; and at the same moment she stirred, sat up, confused, and saw him.

"Letty, dear," he said, coming back, both hands held out to her, "I did not mean to rob you of your sleep."

"Oh--it doesn't matter! I am so glad--" She sat up suddenly, staring at him. The next moment the tears rushed to her eyes.

"O--h," she whispered, "I wished so to see you. I am so thankful you are here. There is--there has been such--a terrible change--something has happened----"

She rose unsteadily; laid her trembling hand on his arm.

"I don't know what it is," she said piteously, "but Ailsa--something dreadful has angered her against me----"

"Against _you_!"

"Oh, yes. I _don't_ know all of it; I know--partly."

Sleep and fatigue still confused her mind; she pressed both frail hands to her eyes, her forehead:

"It was the day I returned from seeing you at Paigecourt. . . . I was deadly tired when the ambulance drove into Azalea; and when it arrived here I had fallen asleep. . . . I woke up when it stopped. Ailsa was sitting here--in this same chair, I think--and I remember as I sat up in the ambulance that an officer was just leaving her--Captain Hallam."

She looked piteously at Berkley.

"He was one of the men I have avoided. Do you understand?"

"No. . . . Was he----"

"Yes, he often came to the--Canterbury. He had never spoken to me there, but Ione Carew knew him; and I was certain he would recognise me. . . . I thought I had succeeded in avoiding him, but he must have seen me when I was not conscious of his presence--he must have recognised me."

She looked down at her worn shoes; the tears fell silently; she smoothed her gray gown for lack of employment for her restless hands.

"Dear," he said, "do you believe he went to Ailsa with his story about you?"

"Oh, yes, yes, I am sure. What else could it be that has angered her--that drives me away from her--that burns me with the dreadful gaze she turns on me--chills me with her more dreadful silence? . . . Why did he do it? I don't know--oh, I don't know. . . . Because I had never even spoken to him--in those days that I have tried so hard--so hard to forget----"

He said slowly: "He is a coward. I have known that for a long time. But most men are. The disgrace lies in acting like one. . . And I--that is why I didn't run in battle. . . . Because, that first day, when they fired on our waggons, _I saw him riding in the road behind us_. Nobody else suspected him to be within miles. I saw him. And--_he galloped the wrong way_. And that is why I--did what I did! He shocked me into doing it. . . . But I never before have told a soul. I would not tell even you--but the man, yesterday, put himself beyond the pale. And it can make no difference now, for he carries the mark into his grave."

He shuddered slightly. "God forbid I hold him up to scorn. I might, this very moment, be what he is now. No man may know--no man can foretell how he will bear himself in time of stress. I have a sorry record of my own. Battle is not the only conflict that makes men or cowards."

He stood silent, gazing into space. Letty's tears dried as she watched him.

"Have you seen--her?" she asked tremulously.

"Yes."

The girl sighed and looked down.

"I am so sorry about Colonel Arran . . . . I believe, somehow, he will get well."

"Do you really believe it, Letty?"

"Yes. The wound is clean. I have seen many recover who were far more dangerously hurt. . . . His age is against him, but I do truly believe he will get well."

He thought a moment. "Have you heard about Stephen Craig?"

"They have telegraphed to his affianced--a Miss Lent. You probably know her. Her brother was killed a day or two ago. Poor little thing! I believe that Miss Lent is coming. Mrs. Craig wishes to take her boy North as soon as he can be moved. And, unless the wound becomes infected, I don't believe he is going to die."

"Where is he?"

"At Paigecourt. Many transports are waiting at the landing. . . . They say that there was another severe engagement near there yesterday, and that our army is victorious. I have heard, also, that we were driven in, and that your regiment lost a great many men and horses . . . I don't know which is true," she added, listlessly picking at her frayed gown; "only, as we haven't heard the guns to-day, it seems to me that if we had lost the battle we'd have Confederate cannon thundering all around us."

"That seems reasonable," he admitted absently. . . . "Is Dr. Benton here still?"

"No," she said softly.

"Where is he?"

"At Paigecourt. I asked him to go because he is the best doctor I ever knew. He came down here to see me; he is not detailed for duty under contract. I asked him to go and see Stephen Craig. He grumbled--and went."

She looked up shyly at Berkley, smiled for the first time, then her pale young face grew beautiful and solemn.

"You dear girl," he said impulsively, taking both her hands and kissing them. "I am so glad for you--and for him. I knew it would come true."

"Yes. But I had to tell him--I started to tell him--and--oh, would you believe how splendid he is! He _knew_ already! He stopped me short--and I never can forget the look in his face. And he said: 'Child--child! You can tell me nothing I am not already aware of. And I am aware of nothing except your goodness.'"

"I _thought_ I knew Phineas Benton," said Berkley, warmly. "He was too upright a character for me to enjoy with any comfort--a few years back. . . . I'm trying harder than you ever had to, Letty. You always desired to be decent; I didn't." He shook both her hands heartily.

"You deserve every atom of your happiness, you dear, sweet girl! I only wish you were safely out of here and back in the North!"

Letty began to cry softly:

"Forgive me, please; I'm not naturally as tearful as this. I am just tired. I've done too much--seen too much--and it hasn't hardened me; it has made me like a silly child, ready to sniffle at anything."

Berkley laughed gently.

"Why are you crying now, Letty?"

"B-because they have offered me a furlough. I didn't apply. But Dr. Benton has made me take it. And it almost kills me to go North and leave Ailsa--alone--and so strangely changed toward me----"

She straightened her shoulders resolutely; brushed the tears from her lashes; strove to smile at him.

"Shall we walk a little? I am not on duty, you know; and I've had enough sleep. There's such a pretty lane along the creek behind the chapel. . . . What are you doing here, anyway? I suppose you are acting orderly to poor Colonel Arran? How splendidly the Lancers have behaved! . . . And those darling Zouaves!--oh, we are just bursting with pride over our Zou-zous----"

They had turned away together, walking slowly through the grove toward a little cart road deep in golden seeded grass which wound down a hollow all moist with ferns and brambles and young trees in heavy leaf.

Her hand, unconsciously, had sought his nestling into it with a confidence that touched him; her pale, happy face turned continually to meet his as she chatted innocently of the things which went to make up the days of life for her, never conscious of herself, or that the artless chatter disclosed anything admirable in her own character. She prattled on at random, sometimes naive, sometimes wistful, sometimes faintly humourous--a brave, clean spirit that was content to take the consequence of duty done--a tender, gentle soul, undeformed amid the sordid horrors that hardened or crippled souls less innocent.

Calm, resourceful, patient, undismayed amid conditions that sickened mature experience to the verge of despair, she went about her business day after day, meeting all requisitions upon her slender endurance without faltering, without even supposing there was anything unusual or praiseworthy in what she did.

She was only one of many women who did full duty through the darkest days the nation ever knew--saints in homespun, martyrs uncanonised save in the hearts of the stricken.

There was a small wooden foot-bridge spanning the brook, with a rough seat nailed against the rail.

"One of my convalescents made it for me," she said proudly. "He could use only one arm, and he had such a hard time sawing and hammering! and the foolish boy wouldn't let anybody help him."

She seated herself in the cool shade of a water oak, retaining his hand in hers and making room for him beside her.

"I wonder," she said, "if you know how good you have been to me. You changed all my life. Do you realise it?"

"You changed it yourself, Letty."

She sighed, leaned back, dreamy eyed, watching the sun spots glow and wane on the weather-beaten footbridge.

"In war time--here in the wards--men seem gentler to women--kinder--than in times of peace. I have stood beside many thousands; not one has been unkind--lacking in deference. . . ." A slight smile grew on her lips; she coloured a little, looked up at Berkley, humorously.

"It would surprise you to know how many have asked me to marry them. . . . Such funny boys. . . . I scolded some of them and made them write immediately to their sweethearts. . . . The older men were more difficult to manage--men from the West--such fine, simple-natured fellows--just sick and lonely enough to fall in love with any woman who fanned them and brought them lemonade. . . . I loved them all dearly. They have been very sweet to me. . . . Men _are_ good. . . . If a woman desires it. . . . The world is so full of people who don't mean to do wrong."

She bent her head, considering, lost in the retrospection of her naive philosophy.

Berkley, secretly amused, was aware of several cadaverous convalescents haunting the bushes above, dodging the eyes of this pretty nurse whom one and all adored, and whom they now beheld, with jealous misgivings, in intimate and unwarrantable tete-a-tete with a common and disgustingly healthy cavalryman.

Then his weather-tanned features grew serious.

The sunny moments slipped away as the sunlit waters slipped under the bridge; a bird or two, shy and songless in their moulting fever, came to the stream to drink, looking up, bright eyed, at the two who sat there in the mid-day silence. One, a cardinal, ruffled his crimson crest, startled, as Berkley moved slightly.

"The Red Birds," he said, half aloud. "To me they are the sweetest singers of all. I remember them as a child, Letty."

After a while Letty rose; her thin hand lingered, on his shoulder as she stood beside him, and he got to his feet and adjusted belt and sabre.

"I love to be with you," she said wistfully. "It's only because I do need a little more sleep that I am going back."

"Of course," he nodded. And they retraced their steps together.

He left her at the door of the quaint, one-storied stone building where, she explained, she had a cot.

"You _will_ come to see me again before you go back to your regiment, won't you?" she pleaded, keeping one hand in both of hers.

"Of course I will. Try to get some sleep, Letty. You're tremendously pretty when you've had plenty of sleep."

They both laughed; then she went indoors and he turned away across the road, under the windows of the ward where Ailsa was on duty, and so around to his store-room dwelling-place, where he sat down on the cot amid the piles of boxes and drew from his pocket the crumpled sheets of the letter that Ailsa had given him.

The handwriting seemed vaguely familiar to him; he glanced curiously down the page; his eyes became riveted; he reddened to the roots of his hair; then he deliberately began at the beginning, reading very carefully.

The letter had been written several weeks ago; it was dated, and signed with Hallam's name:

"MY DEAR MRS. PAIGE:

"Only my solemn sense of duty to all pure womanhood enables me to indite these lines to you; and, by so doing, to invite, nay, to encourage a cruel misunderstanding of my sincerest motives.

"But my letter is not dictated by malice or inspired by the natural chagrin which animates a man of spirit when he reflects upon the undeserved humiliation which he has endured from her who was once dearer to him than life itself. Mine is a nature susceptible and sensitive, yet, I natter myself, incapable of harbouring sentiments unworthy of a gentleman and a soldier.

"To forgive, to condone, is always commendable in man; but, madam, there is a higher duty men owe to womanhood--to chaste and trusting womanhood, incapable of defending itself from the wiles and schemes which ever are waiting to ensnare it.

"It is for this reason, and for this reason alone, that, my suspicions fully aroused, I have been at some pains to verify them. A heart conscious of its moral rectitude does not flinch from the duty before it or from the pain which, unfortunately, the execution of that duty so often inflicts upon the innocent.

"Believe me, dear Mrs. Paige, it is a sad task that lies before me. Woman is frail and weak by nature. Man's noblest aspiration can attain no loftier consummation than in the protection of a pure woman against contamination.

"Mine becomes the unhappy mission of unmasking two unworthy people whom you, in your innocence and trust, have cherished close to your heart. I speak of the trooper Ormond--whose name I believe you know is Philip Berkley--and, if you now hear it for the first time, it is proof additional of his deceit and perfidy.

"The other is Miss Lynden, known, in a certain immoral resort called the Canterbury, as Letty Lynden, or 'Daisy' Lynden.

"She was a dancer in the Canterbury Music Hall. I enclose photographs of her in costume, also receipts from her landlady, washing lists, her contract with the Canterbury, all in her own handwriting, and all gathered for me at my request by a New York detective, and forwarded to me here. Among these papers you will find several notes written to her in the spring and summer of 1861 by the trooper Berkley and discovered in her room by her landlady after her departure. A perusal of them is sufficient to leave no doubt concerning the character of this young woman--who, apparently, neglected by the fellow, Berkley, pleaded piteously with him for an interview, and was, as you see, cynically rebuffed.

"I enclose, also, an affidavit made by Miss Lynden's landlady that she, Letty, or 'Daisy' Lynden, was commonly understood to be the mistress of Berkley; that he took her from the Canterbury and from her lodgings, paid her board bills, and installed her in rooms at the enclosed address, where she remained until she found employment with a Doctor Benton.

"What her relations were with him I do not pretend to know. It is evident, however, that they continue, as he writes to her. It will also be apparent to you that she has not scrupled to continue her relations with the man Berkley.

"I will now further prove to you the truth of my assertion concerning this degrading and demoralising condition of affairs.

"It came to my knowledge that a certain Arthur Wye, serving in the volunteer artillery, and a certain subaltern in a zouave regiment, were not only intimates of the trooper Berkley, but had also been on dubious terms with the Lynden girl.

"Therefore, in company with an agent of the United States Secret Service detailed for the duty by Surgeon-General Hammond at my request, I held a private examination of these two men, and, with some adroitness, succeeded in making them identify the photographs of the Lynden girl, and later, unobserved by her, attempted to make them identify her as she was sitting outside the field hospital. But this they refused to do.

"However, that evidence was not necessary. Among her effects, scraps of letters in the waste-basket, etc., which she had imprudently left at her lodgings, were discovered fragments which, when pasted together, showed conclusively that she was on speaking terms at least with the artilleryman, Wye.

"This evidence I deem it my duty to lay before you. As a sensitive and chaste woman, gently born, the condition of affairs will horrify you. But the knowledge of them will also enable you to take measures for self-protection, and to clearly understand the measure which I shall now take to rid the Sanitary Service of this abandoned woman, who, as your friend and intimate associate, conceals her true character under the garb of Sainte Ursula, and who continues her intrigues with the trooper Berkley under the very roof that shelters you.

"I am, madam, with sincere pain and deepest sympathy and respect,

"Obediently your humble servant,
"EUGENE HALLAM,
"Capt. 8th N. Y. Cav."

He laid the letter and the enclosed papers on the bunk beside him, and sat there thinking.

He knew that the evidence before him had been sufficient to drive Letty from the Sanitary Service. Why had she not been driven? The evidence and the letter were weeks old now. What had prevented their use? And now Hallam was a fugitive--a deserter in the face of the enemy. It was too late for him to work more mischief if he would. But why had he held his hand against Letty?

Sunset found him still sitting there, thinking. The old negro came shuffling in, bringing hot hoe-cake and bacon for his dinner. He ate obediently; later he submitted to the razor and clothes brush, absently pondering the problem that obsessed him: "Why had Hallam spared Letty; how could he convey the truth to Ailsa Paige?"

At dusk he reported to the ward-master; but Colonel Arran was asleep, and there were no orders for him.

Then, slowly, he went into the adjoining ward. Ailsa was off duty, lying down in her room. His message asking a moment's interview was refused.

So he turned away again, head bent, and wandered over to his store-room quarters, pondering the problem before him. _

Read next: Chapter 19

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