THE REPUTATION OF A WOMAN
LIKE a flash occurred to me the only possible means by which we might
escape open discovery--an instant disclosure of my supposed rank,
coupled with indignant protest. Already, believing me merely some
private soldier straying out of bounds with a woman of the camp as
companion, he had thrown himself from the saddle to investigate.
Whatever was to be done must be accomplished quickly, or it would prove
all too late. To think was to act. Stepping instantly in front of the
shrinking girl and facing him, I said sternly:
“I do not know who you may chance to be, sir, nor greatly care, yet
your words and actions imply an insult to this lady which I am little
disposed to overlook. For your information permit me to state, I am
Colonel Curran, Sixth Ohio Light Artillery, and am not accustomed to
being halted on the road by every drunken fool who sports a uniform.”
He stopped short in complete surprise, staring at me through the
darkness, and I doubted not was perfectly able to distinguish the glint
of buttons and gleam of braid.
“Your pardon, sir,” he ejaculated at last. “I mistook you for some
runaway soldier. But I failed to catch your words; how did you name
yourself?”
“Colonel Curran, of Major-General Halleck's staff.”
“The hell you are! Curran had a full gray beard a month ago.”
He took a step forward, and before I could recover from the first
numbing shock of surprise was peering intently into my face.
“Damn it!” he cried, tugging viciously at a revolver in his belt, “I
know that face! You are the measly Johnny Reb I brought in day before
yesterday.”
I could mark the flash of the stars on the blue steel of his pistol
barrel, and knew from the eager ring of his voice he exulted in the hope
that I would give him excuse to fire. Yet I thought in that moment of
but one thing--the woman who had compromised her name to help me to
attain freedom. I would have died a thousand deaths if it might only be
with my hands at his throat, her story unknown. Yet even as I braced my
body for the leap, gazing straight into that deadly barrel, there came
a quick flutter of drapery at my side, and she, pressing me firmly
backward, faced him without a word.
The man's extended arm dropped to his side as though pierced by a
bullet, and he took one step backward, shrinking as if his startled eyes
beheld a ghost.
“Edith?” he cried, as though doubting his own vision, and the ring of
agony in his voice was almost piteous. “Edith! My God! You here, at
midnight, alone with this man?”
However the words, the tone, the gesture may have stung her, her face
remained proudly calm, her voice cold and clear.
“I certainly am, Major Brennan,” she answered, her eyes never once
leaving his face. “And may I ask what reason you can have to object?”
“Reason?” His voice had grown hoarse with passion and surprise. “My God,
how can you ask? How can you even face me? Why do you not sink down in
shame? Alone here,”--he looked about him into the darkness,--“at such
an hour, in company with a Rebel, a sneaking, cowardly spy, already
condemned to be shot. By Heaven! he shall never live to boast of it!”
He flung up his revolver barrel to prove the truth of his threat, but
she stepped directly between us, and shielded me with her form.
“Put down your pistol,” she ordered coldly. “I assure you my reputation
is in no immediate danger unless you shoot me, and your bullet shall
certainly find my heart before it ever reaches Captain Wayne.”
“Truly, you must indeed love him,” he sneered.
So close to me was she standing that I could feel her form tremble at
this insult, yet her voice remained emotionless.
“Your uncalled-for words shame me, not my actions. In being here with
Captain Wayne to-night I am merely paying a simple debt of honor--a
double debt, indeed, considering that he was condemned to death by your
lie, while you deceived me by another.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“He did not. Like the true gentleman he has ever shown himself to be, he
endeavored to disguise the facts, to withhold from me all knowledge of
your dastardly action. I know it by the infamous sentence pronounced
against him and by your falsehood to me.”
“Edith, you mistake,” he urged anxiously. “I--I was told that he had
been sent North.”
She drew a deep breath, as though she could scarcely grasp the full
audacity of his pretence to ignorance.
“You appeared to be fully informed but now as to his death sentence.”
“Yes, I heard of it while away, and intended telling you as soon as I
reached our quarters.”
I could feel the scorn of his miserable deception as it curled her lip,
and her figure seemed to straighten between us.
“Then,” she said slowly, “you will doubtless agree that I have done no
more than was right, and will therefore permit him this chance of escape
from so unmerited a fate; for you know as well as I do that he has been
wrongly condemned.”
He stepped forward with a half-smothered oath, and rested one hand
heavily upon her shoulder.
“An exceedingly neat trap,” he said, with a grim laugh, “a most
ingenious snare; yet hardly one I am likely to be caught in. I am not
quite so green, my lady. What! let that fellow go? become the laughing
stock of you and your Johnny Reb lover? I rather guess not, madam. Damn
him! I will hang him now higher than Haman, just to show Queen Esther
that it can be done. Out of the way, madam!”
Rendered desperate by her slight resistance and his own jealous hatred,
he thrust the woman aside so rudely that she fell forward upon one knee.
His revolver was yet in his right hand, gleaming in the starlight, but
before he could raise or fire it I had grasped the steel barrel firmly,
and the hammer came down noiselessly upon the flesh of my thumb. The
next instant we were locked close together in fierce struggle for the
mastery. He was the heavier, stronger man; I the younger and quicker.
From the first every effort on both sides was put forth solely to gain
command of the weapon,--his to fire, mine to prevent, for I knew well at
the sound of the discharge there would come a rush of blue-coats to his
rescue. My first fierce onset had put him on the defensive, but as we
tugged and strained his superiority in weight began to tell, and slowly
he bore me backward, desperately contesting every inch I was thus
compelled to yield.
We struggled voiceless, neither having breath for useless speech, and
each realizing that the end would probably mean death either to the one
or the other. Only our heavy breathing, the quick shuffling of feet
on the stony road, and an occasional rending of cloth, evinced the
desperation in which we strove. Once, as we turned partially in the
struggle, I caught a passing glimpse of the woman standing helpless,
her face buried in her hands, and the sight yielded me new strength and
determination. For her sake I must win! Even as this thought came, my
burly antagonist pressed me backward until all the weight of my body
rested upon my right leg. Then there occurred to me like a flash a
wrestler's trick taught me years before by an old negro on my father's
plantation. Instantly I appeared to yield to the force against which
I contended with simulated weakness, sinking lower and lower, until, I
doubt not, Brennan felt convinced I must go over backward. But as I thus
sank, my left foot found steady support farther back, while my free hand
sank slowly down his straining body until my groping fingers grasped
firmly the broad belt about his waist. I yielded yet another inch, until
he leaned so far over me as to be out of all balance, and then, with
sudden straightening of my left leg, at the same time forcing my head
beneath his chest in leverage, with one tremendous effort I flung him,
head under, crashing down upon the hard road.
Trembling like a reed from the exertion, I stood there looking down upon
the dark form lying huddled at my feet. He rested motionless, and I bent
over, placing my hand upon his heart, horrified at the mere thought that
he might be dead. But the heart beat, and with a prayer of thankfulness
I looked up. She stood beside me.
“Tell me, Captain Wayne,” she exclaimed anxiously, “he is not--not
seriously hurt?”
The words thoroughly aroused me, and I recalled instantly her probable
relationship to this man, her delicate position now.
“I believe not,” I answered soberly. “He is a heavy man, and fell hard,
yet his heart beats strong. He must have cut his head upon a stone,
however, for he is bleeding.”
She knelt beside him, and I caught the whiteness of a handkerchief
within her hand.
“Believe me, Mrs. Brennan,” I faltered lamely, “I regret this far more
than I can tell. Nothing has ever occurred to me to give greater pain
than the thought that I have brought you so much of sorrow and trouble.”
She held up her hand to me, and I took it humbly.
“It was in no way your fault; pray do not consider that I can ever blame
you for the outcome.”
Her eyes were upon me; I could view her face in the starlight, and for
the moment I utterly forgot the man who rested there between us.
“If you could only know,” I exclaimed eagerly, “how sincerely I long
to serve you,--to atone in some small way for all the difficulty I have
brought into your life; how my heart throbs to your presence as to that
of no other living woman--”
She hushed my impetuous words with the gesture of a queen, and rose to
her feet facing me. Under the stars our eyes looked into each other, and
her face was very white.
“You must not,” she said firmly, and I thought she glanced down upon the
motionless figure at her feet. “I have trusted you; do not cause me to
regret it now.”
I bowed, humiliated to the very depths of my soul.
“Your rebuke is perfectly just,” I answered slowly. “God knows I shall
never be guilty again. You will have faith in me?”
“Always, everywhere--whether it ever be our fate to meet again or not.
But now you must go.”
“Go? And leave you here alone? Are you not afraid?”
“Afraid?” she looked about her into the darkness. “Of what? Surely you
do not mean of Frank--of Major Brennan? And as to my being alone, our
quarters are within a scant hundred yards from here, and a single cry
will bring me aid in plenty. Hush! what was that?”
It was the shuffling tread of many feet, the sturdy tramp of a body of
infantry on the march.
“Go!” she cried hurriedly. “If you would truly serve me, if you care at
all for me, do not longer delay and be discovered here. It is the grand
rounds. I beg of you, go!”
I grasped her outstretched hand, pressed my lips hotly upon it, and sped
with noiseless footsteps down the black, deserted road.