Stuart succeeded in securing from Colonel Sumner a leave of absence
of two weeks to visit Fort Riley. The Colonel suspected the truth and
teased the gallant youngster until he confessed.
He handed Stuart the order with a hearty laugh.
"It's all right, my boy. I've been young myself. Good luck."
Stuart's laughter rang clear and hearty.
"Thank you, Colonel. You had me scared."
He had just turned to leave the room when a messenger handed Sumner a
telegram.
Stuart paused to hear the message.
"Bad news, Lieutenant."
"What, sir?"
"An attack has been made on the Southern settlement on the
Pottawattomie."
"A drunken fight--"
"No. Wilkinson, the member of the Legislature from Miami County, was
taken from his house in the night and murdered."
"The story's a fake," Stuart ventured.
"The man who sent this message doesn't make such mistakes."
He paused and studied the telegram.
"No. This means the beginning of a blood feud. The time's ripe for it."
"We'll have better news to-morrow," Stuart hoped.
"We'll have worse. I've been looking for something like this since the
day I heard old Brown harangue a mob at Lawrence."
He stopped short.
"You'll have to give me back that order, my boy."
Stuart's face fell.
"Colonel, I've just got to see that girl, if it's only for a day--"
He slowly handed the order back to the Commandant. Sumner watched the
red blood mount to Stuart's face with a look of sympathy.
"Is it as bad as that, boy?"
"It couldn't be worse, sir," Stuart admitted in low tones. "I'm a
goner."
"All right. You've no time to lose, I'll give you three days--"
"Thank you!"
"This regiment will be on the march before a week has passed or I miss
my guess."
"I'll be here, sir!" was the quick response.
Stuart grasped the leave of absence and hurried out before another
messenger could arrive.
He reached Fort Riley the following day and had but twenty-four hours in
which to crowd the most important event of his life.
He paced the floor in Colonel Cooke's reception room awaiting Flora's
appearance with eager impatience. What on earth could be keeping her? He
asked himself the question fifty times and looked at his watch a dozen
times before he heard the rustle of organdy on the stairs.
A vision of radiant youth! She had taken time to make her beauty still
more radiant with the daintiest touches to her blonde hair.
The simple dress she wore was a poem. The young cavalier was stunned
anew. There was no doubt about the welcome in her smile and voice. It
thrilled him to his fingertips. He held her hand until she drew it away
with a little self-conscious laugh that was confusing to Stuart's plan
of direct action.
There was a touch of the Southern girl's conscious poise and coquetry in
the laugh. There was something aloof in it that meant trouble. He felt
it with positive terror. He didn't have time to fence for position. He
was in no mood for a flirtation. He had come to speak the deep things.
She led him to a seat with an air of dignity and reserve that alarmed
him still more. He had taken too much for granted perhaps. There might
be another man. Conceited fool! He hadn't thought it possible. Her
manner had been so frank, so utterly sincere.
She sat by his side smiling at him in the bewitching way so many pretty
girls had done before, when they merely wished to play with love.
He spoke in commonplaces and studied her with increasing panic. Her
tactics baffled him. Until at last he believed he had solved the riddle!
She had suddenly waked to the fact, as he had, that she had met her
fate. She was drawing back for a moment in fright at the seriousness of
surrender.
"Yes, that's it!" he murmured half aloud.
"What did you say?" she asked archly.
And his heart sank again. She asked the question with a tone of teasing
that made him blush in spite of himself.
With sudden resolution he decided to make the plunge. He seized her
hand and spoke with a queer hitch of awkwardness in his voice.
"Miss Flora, I've just twenty-four hours to be here. Every one of them
is precious. I want to make them count. Don't you know that I love you?"
The little mouth twitched with a smile.
"I've heard that you're very fickle, Mr. Jeb Stuart. Isn't this all
very, very sudden, to be so serious?"
She was still smiling and her eyes were twinkling, but her hand was
not trembling. She was complete mistress of her emotions.
Stuart felt his heart pounding. He couldn't keep his hand from
trembling, nor his voice from quivering slightly.
"I know I've been a little quick on the trigger, Miss Flora. But it
came to me in a flash, the moment I saw you. I've had a good time with
pretty girls--yes. But I never felt that way when I met one of the
others. And now I'm stammering and trembling and I don't know how to
talk to you. I can't rattle on like I've done so many times.
You--you've got me, dear honey girl, for life, if you want
me--please--be good to me."
She laughed a joyous, girlish peal that disconcerted him completely.
"My daddy's been warning me against you, sir!"
Stuart suddenly caught a note in her laughter that gave him courage.
She was not laughing at him but with him.
"He did not," he protested solemnly. "Colonel Cooke was just as nice
to me as he could be--"
"Certainly. He's an Old Virginia gentleman. Behind your back he told
me confidentially what he thought of you."
"All right. I dare you to cross your heart and tell me what he said."
"Dare me?"
"Dee double dare you."
"He said that you're a sad product of Sir Walter Scott's novels, a
singing, rollicking, flirting, lazy young cavalier."
"Didn't say lazy."
"No."
"I thought not."
"I added that for good measure."
"I thought so."
"And he warned me that there might be a streak of the old Stuart purple
blood in your veins that might make you silly for life--"
"Didn't say silly."
"No, I added that, too."
Stuart again seized the hand she had deftly withdrawn. He pressed it
tenderly and sought the depths of her blue eyes.
"Ah, honey girl," he cried passionately, "don't tease me any more,
please! I've got to leave you in a few hours. My regiment is going to
march. It may be a serious business. You're a brave soldier's daughter
and you're going to be a soldier's bride."
The girl's lips quivered for the first time and her voice trembled the
slightest bit as she fought for self-control.
"I'll never marry a soldier."
"You will!"
"My daddy's never at home. I promised my mother never to look at a
soldier."
"You're looking at me, dear heart!"
She turned quickly.
"I won't--"
Stuart drew her suddenly into his arms and kissed her.
"I love you, Flora! And you're mine."
She looked into his eyes, smiled, slipped both arms around his neck and
kissed him.
"And I love you, my foolish, singing, laughing boy!"
"Always?"
"Always."
"And you'll marry me?"
"You couldn't get away from me if you tried."
She drew him down and kissed him again.
"The shadow will always be in my heart, dear soldier man. The shadow of
the day I shall lose you! But it's life. I'll face it with a smile."
Through the long, sweet hours of the day and deep into the night they
held each other's hand, and talked and laughed and dreamed and planned.
What mattered the shadow that was slowly moving across the sunlit earth?
It _was_ the morning of life!