BETWEEN THE LINES
Betty Winter found to her sorrow that the memory of a dead love could be
a troublesome thing. Ned Vaughan's tender and compelling passion had
been resistless in the moonlight beneath a fragrant apple tree with the
old mill wheel splashing its music at their feet. She had returned to
her cot in the hospital that night in a glow of quiet, peaceful joy.
Life's problem had been solved at last in the sweet peace of a tender
and beautiful spiritual love--the only love that could be real.
All this was plain, while the glow of Ned's words were in her heart and
the memory of his nearness alive in the fingers and lips he had kissed.
And then to her terror came stealing back the torturing vision of his
brother. Why, why, why could she never shut out the memory of this man!
Over and over again she repeated the angry final word:
"He isn't worth a moment's thought!"
And yet she kept on thinking, thinking, always in the same blind circle.
At last came the new resolution,
"Worthy or unworthy, I've given my word to a better man and that settles
it."
The fight had become in her inflamed imagination the struggle between
good and evil. The younger man with his chivalrous boyish ideals was
God, Love, Light. The older with his iron will, his fierce ungovernable
passion, was the Devil, Lust and Darkness. She trembled with new terror
at the discovery that there was something elemental deep within her own
life that answered the challenge of this older voice with a strange
joyous daring.
She had just risen from her knees where she had prayed for strength to
fight and win this battle when the maid knocked on her door. She had
left the hospital and returned home for a week's rest, tottering on the
verge of a nervous collapse since her return from the meeting with Ned.
"A letter, Miss Betty," the maid said with a smile.
She tore the envelope with nervous dread. It bore no postmark and was
addressed in a strange hand.
Inside was another envelope in Ned's handwriting, and around it a sheet
of paper on which was scrawled,
"DEAR MISS WINTER: The bearer of this letter is a trusted spy of
both Governments. I have friends in Washington and in Richmond. In
Richmond I am supposed to betray the Washington Government. In
Washington it is known that I am at heart loyal to the Union, and
all my correspondence from Richmond to the Confederate agents in
Canada and the North I deliver to the President and Stanton. This
one is an exception. I happened to have met Mr. Ned. Vaughan and
like him. I deliver this letter to you unopened by any hand. I've a
sweetheart myself."
With a cry of joy, Betty broke the seal and read Ned's message. It was
written just after the battle of Gettysburg.
"DEAREST: I am writing to you to-night because I must--though this
may never reach you. The whole look of war has changed for me since
that wonderful hour we spent in the moonlight beside the river and
you promised me your life. It's all a pitiful tragedy now, and
love, love, love seems the only thing in all God's universe worth
while! I don't wish to kill any more. It hurts the big something
inside that's divine. I'm surprised at myself that I can't see the
issues of National life as I saw them at first. Somehow they have
become dwarfed beside the new wonder and glory that fills my heart.
And now like a poor traitor, I am praying for peace, peace at any
price. Oh, dearest, you have brought me to this. I love you so
utterly with every breath I breathe, every thought of mind and
every impulse of soul and body, how can I see aught else in the
world?
"In every scene of these three days of horror through which we've
just passed, my thought was of you. The signal gun that called the
men to die boomed your name for me. I heard it in the din and roar
and crash of armies. The louder came the call of death, the sweeter
life seemed because life meant you. Life has taken on a new and
wonderful meaning. I love it as I never loved it before and I've
grown to hate death and I whisper it to you, my love, my own--to
hate war! I want to live now, and I'm praying, praying, praying for
peace. My mind is yet clear in its conviction of right or I could
not stay here a moment longer. But I'm longing and hoping and
wondering whether God will not show us the way out of your tragic
dilemma.
"During the battle I found a handsome young Federal officer who had
fallen inside out lines. With his last strength he was trying to
write a message to his bride who was waiting for him behind the
Union lines. I couldn't pass by. I stopped and got his name, gave
him water and made him as comfortable as possible. I got
permission from my General while the battle raged and sent his
message with a flag of truce to his wife. She came flying to his
side at the risk of her life, got to the rear and saved him.
Perhaps I wasn't an ideal soldier in that pause in my fight. But I
had to do it, dearest. It was your sweet spirit that stopped me and
sent the white flag of love and mercy.
"And the strangest of all the things of the war happened that
night. I spent six hours among the wounded, helping the poor boys
all I could--both blue and grey--and I suddenly ran into John at
the same pitiful work. It's curious how all the bitterness is gone
out of my heart.
"I grabbed him and hugged him, and we both cried like two fools. We
sat down between the lines in the brilliant moonlight and talked
for an hour. I told him of you, dearest, and he wished me all the
happiness life could give, but with a queer hitch in his voice, and
after a long silence, which made me wonder if he, too, had not been
loving you in secret. I shouldn't wonder if every man who sees you
loves you. The wonder to me is they don't.
"Our band is playing an old-fashioned Southern song that sets my
heart to beating with joyous madness again. I'm dreaming through
that song of the home I'm going to build for you somewhere in the
land of sunshine. Don't worry about me. I'm not going to die. I
know I'm immortal now. I had faith once. Now I know--because I love
you and time is too short to tell and all too short to live my
love.
"NED."
She read it over twice through eyes that grew dim with each foolish,
sweet extravagance. And then she went back and read for the third time
the line about John, threw herself across her bed and burst into tears.