THE DESERTER
There had been a desertion from a regiment on the Potomac. An officer
of inferior rank, but whose position had been such as to make him the
possessor of much valuable information, and whose perfect loyalty had
been for some time suspected, was missing from his command one morning,
and under such circumstances as to leave little doubt that his intention
was to reach the enemy's lines if possible. Long and loud were the
invectives against the traitor, and none were deeper in their
denunciations than Captain Hugh Worthington, as, seated on his fiery war
horse, Rocket, he heard from Irving Stanley the story of Dr. Richards'
disgrace.
"He should be pursued, brought back, and shot!" he said, emphatically,
feeling that he would like much to be one of the pursuers, already on
the track of the treacherous doctor, who skillfully eluded them all, and
just at the close of a warm summer day, when afar, in his New England
home, his Sister Anna was reading, with an aching heart, the story of
his disgrace, he sat in the shadow of the Virginia woods, weary,
footsore and faint with the pain caused from his ankle, sprained by a
recent fall.
He had hunted for Adah until entirely discouraged, and partly as a
panacea for the remorse preying so constantly upon him, and partly in
compliance with Anna's entreaties, he had at last joined the Federal
army, and been sworn in with the full expectation of some lucrative
office. But his unlucky star was in the ascendant. Stories derogatory to
his character were set afloat, and the final result of the whole was
that he found himself enrolled in a company where he knew he was
disliked, and under a captain whom he thoroughly detested, for the fraud
practiced upon himself. In this condition he was sent to the Potomac,
and while on duty as a picket, grew to be on the most friendly terms
with more than one of the enemy, planning at last to desert, and
effecting his escape one stormy night, when the watch were off their
guard. Owing to some mistake, the aid promised by his Rebel friends had
not been extended, and as best he could he was making his way to
Richmond, when, worn out with hunger, watchfulness and fatigue, he sank
down to die, as he believed, at the entrance of some beautiful woods
which skirted the borders of a well-kept farm in Virginia. Before him,
at the distance of nearly a quarter of a mile, a large, handsome house
was visible, and by the wreath of smoke curling from the rear chimney,
he knew it was inhabited, and thought once to go there, and beg for the
food he craved so terribly. But fear kept him back--the people might be
Unionists, and might detain him a prisoner until the officers upon his
track came up. Dr. Richards was cowardly, and so with a groan, he laid
his head upon the grass, and half wished that he had died ere he came to
be the miserable wretch he was. The pain in his ankle was by this time
intolerable, and the limb was swelling so fast that to walk on the
morrow was impossible, and if he found a shelter at all, it must be
found that night.
Midway between himself and the house was a comfortable-looking barn,
whither he resolved to go. But the journey was a tedious one, and
brought to his flushed forehead great drops of sweat, wrung out by the
agony it caused him to step upon his foot. At last, when he could bear
his weight upon it no longer, he sank upon the ground, and crawling
slowly upon his hands and knees, reached the barn just as it was growing
dark, and the shadows creeping into the corners made him half shrink
with terror lest they were the bayonets of those whose coming he was
constantly expecting. He could not climb to the scaffolding, and so he
sought a friendly pile of hay, and crouching down behind it, ere long
fell asleep for the first time in three long days and nights.
The early June sun was just shining through the cracks between the
boards when he awoke, sore, stiff, feverish, burning with thirst, and
utterly unable to use the poor, swollen foot, which lay so helplessly
upon the hay.
"Oh, for Anna now," he moaned; "if she were only here; or Lily, dear
Lily, she would pity and forgive, could she see me now."
But hark, what sound is it which falls upon his ear, making him quake
with fear, and, in spite of his aching ankle, creep farther behind the
hay? It is a footstep--a light, tripping step, and it comes that way,
nearer, nearer, until a shadow falls between the open chinks and the
bright sunshine without. Then it moves on, around the corner, pausing
for a moment, while the hidden coward holds his breath, and listens
anxiously, hoping nothing is coming there. But there is, and it enters
the same door through which he came the previous night--a girlish
figure, with a basket on her arm--a basket in which she puts the eggs
she knows just where to find. Not behind the hay, where a poor wretch
was almost dead with terror. There was no nest there, and so she failed
to see the ghastly face, pinched with hunger and pain, the glassy eyes,
the uncombed hair, and soiled tattered garments of him who once was
known as one of fashion's most fastidious dandies.
She had secured her eggs for the morning meal, and the doctor hoped she
was about to leave, when there was a rustling of the hay, and he almost
uttered a scream of fear. But the sound died on his lips, as he heard
the voice of prayer--heard that young girl as she prayed, and the words
she uttered stopped, for an instant, the pulsations of his heart, and
partly took his senses away. First for her baby boy she prayed, asking
that God would be to him father and mother both, and keep him from
temptation. Then for her country, her distracted, bleeding country, and
the doctor, listening to her, knew it was no Rebel tongue calling so
earnestly on God to save the Union, praying so touchingly for the poor,
suffering soldiers, and coming at last even to him, the miserable
outcast, whose bloodshot eyes grew blind, and whose brain grew giddy and
wild, as he heard again Lily's voice, pleading for George, wherever he
might be. She did not say: "God send him back to me, who loves him
still." She only asked forgiveness for the father of her boy, but this
was proof to the listener that she did not hate him, and forgetful of
his pain he raised himself upon his elbow, and looking over the pile of
hay, saw her where she knelt. Lily, Adah, his wife, her fair face
covered by her hands, and her soft, brown hair cut short and curling in
her neck.
Twice he essayed to speak, but his tongue refused to move, and he sank
back exhausted, just as Adah arose from her knees and turned to leave
the barn. He could not let her go. He should die before she came again;
he was half dying now, and it would be so sweet to breathe out his life
upon her bosom, with perhaps her forgiving kiss upon his lips.
"Adah!" he tried to say; but the quivering lips made no sound, and Adah
passed out, leaving him there alone. "Adah, Lily, Anna," he gasped,
hardly knowing himself whose name he called in his despair.
She heard that sound, and started suddenly, for she thought it was her
old, familiar name which no one knew there at Sunny Mead. For a moment
she paused; but it came not again, and so she turned the corner, and her
shadow fell a second time on the haggard face pressed against that
crevice in the wall, the opening large enough to thrust the long fingers
through, in the wild hope of detaining her as she passed.
"Adah!"
It was a gasping, bitter cry; but it reached her, and looking back, she
saw the pale hand beckoning, the fingers motioning feebly, as if begging
her to return. There was a moment's hesitation, and then conquering her
timidity, Adah went back, shuddering as she passed the still beckoning
hand, and caught a glimpse of the wild eyes peering at her through the
crevice.
"Adah!"
She heard it distinctly now, and with it came thoughts of Hugh. It must
be he; and her feet scarcely touched the ground in her eagerness to find
him. Over the threshold, across the floor, and behind the hay she
bounded; but stood aghast at the spectacle before her. He had struggled
to his knees; and with his sprained limb coiled under him, his ashen
lips apart, and his arms stretched out, he was waiting for her. But Adah
did not spring into those trembling arms, as once she would have done.
She would never willingly rest in their embrace again; and utter,
overwhelming surprise was the only emotion on her face as she recognized
him, not so much by his looks as by the name he gave her.
"George, oh, George, how came you here?" she asked, drawing backward
from the arm reached out to touch her.
He felt that he was repulsed, and, with a wail which smote painfully on
Adah's heart, he fell forward on his face, sobbing: "Oh, Adah, Lily,
pity me, pity me, if you can't forgive! I have slept for three nights in
the woods, without once tasting food! My ankle is sprained, my strength
is gone, and I wish that I were dead!"
She had drawn nearer to him, while he spoke, near enough to recognize
her country's uniform, all soiled and tattered though it was. He was a
soldier, then--Liberty's loyal son--and that fact awoke a throb of pity.
"George," she said, kneeling down beside him, and laying her hand upon
his ragged coat, "tell me how came you here, and where is your company?"
He would not deceive her, though tempted to do so, and he answered her
truthfully: "Lily, I am a deserter. I am trying to join the enemy!"
He did not see the indignant flash of her eyes, or the look of scorn
upon her face, but he felt the reproach her silence implied, and dared
not look up.
"George," she began at last, sternly, very sternly, "but for Him who
bade us forgive seventy times seven, I should feel inclined to leave you
here to die; but when I remember how much He is tried with one, I feel
that I am to be no one's judge. Tell me, then, why you have deserted;
and tell me, too--oh, George, in mercy--tell me if you know aught of
Willie?"
The mother had forgotten all the wrongs heaped upon the wife, and Adah
drew nearer to him now, so near, indeed, that his arm encircled her at
last, and held her close; but the ragged, dirty, fallen creature did not
dare to kiss her, and could only press her convulsively to his breast,
as he attempted an answer to her question.
"You must be quick," she said, suddenly remembering herself; "it is
growing late, Mrs. Ellsworth will be waiting for her breakfast; and
since the stampede of her servants, two old negroes and myself are all
there are left to care for the house. Stay," she added, as a new thought
seemed to strike her; "I must go, or they will look for me; but after
breakfast I will return, and do for you what I can. Lie down again upon
the hay."
She spoke kindly to him, but he felt it was as she would have spoken to
any one in distress, and not as once she had addressed him. But he knew
that he deserved it, and he suffered her to leave him, watching her with
streaming eyes as she hurried along the path, and counting the minutes,
which seemed to him like hours, ere he saw her returning. She was very
white when she came back, and he noticed that she frequently glanced
toward the house, as if haunted by some terror. Constantly expecting
detection, he grasped her arm, as she bent to bathe his swollen foot,
and whispered huskily: "Adah, there's something on your mind--some evil
you fear. Tell me, is any one after me!"
Adah nodded; while, like a frightened child, the tall man clung to her
neck, saying, piteously: "Don't give me up! Don't tell; they would hang
me, perhaps!"
"They ought to do so," trembled on Adah's lips, but she suppressed the
words, and went on bandaging up the ankle, and handling it as carefully
as if it had not belonged to a deserter.
He did not feel pain now in his anxiety, as he asked: "Who is it, Adah?
who's after me?" but he started when she replied, with downcast eyes and
a flush upon her cheek: "Major Irving Stanley. You were in his
regiment, the ----th New York Volunteers."
Dr. Richards drew a relieved breath. "I'd rather it were he than Captain
Worthington, who hates me so cordially. Adah, you must hide me; I have
so much to tell. I know your parents, your brother, your husband; and I
am he. It was not a mock marriage. It has been proved real. It was a
genuine justice who married us, and you are my lawful wife. Oh, pray,
please don't hurt me so." He uttered a scream of pain as Adah's hands
pressed heavily now upon the hard, purple flesh.
She scarcely knew what she was doing as she listened to his words and
heard that she was indeed his wife. Two years before, such news would
have overwhelmed her with delight, but now for a single instant a fierce
and almost resentful pang shot through her heart as she thought of being
bound for life to one for whom she had no love, and whose very caresses
made her loathe him more and more. But when she thought of Willie, and
how the stain upon his birth was washed away, the hard look left her
eyes, and her hot tears dropped upon the ankle she was bandaging.
"You are glad?" he asked, looking at her curiously, for her manner
puzzled him.
"Yes, very glad for Willie," she replied, keeping her face bent down so
he could not see its expression.
Then when her task was done, she seemed to nerve herself for some
powerful task, and sitting down upon the hay, out of reach of his arms,
she said:
"Tell me now all that has happened since I left Terrace Hill; but first
of Willie. You say Anna has him?"
"Yes, Anna--Mrs. Millbrook," he replied, and was about to say more, when
Adah interrupted him with:
"It may spare you some pain if I tell you first what I know of the
tragedy at Spring Bank. I know that 'Lina is dead, and that the fact of
my existence prevented the marriage. So much I heard Mr. Stanley tell
his sister. I had just come to her then. She was prouder toward me than
she is now, and with a look silenced him from talking in my presence, so
that was all I ever knew, as I dared not question her lest I should be
suspected. Go on, you spoke of my parents, my brother. Who are they?"
Her manner perplexed him greatly, but he controlled himself, while he
repeated rapidly the story known already to our readers, the story
which made Adah reel where she sat, and turn so white that he attempted
to reach her, and so keep her from falling. But just the touch of his
hand had power to arouse her, and drawing back she laid her face in the
hay, and moaned:
"That gentle woman, my mother; that noble Hugh, my brother! it's more
than I ever hoped. Oh, Heavenly Father, accept my thanks for this great
happiness. A mother and a brother found."
"And husband, too," chimed in the doctor, eagerly, "thank Him for me,
Adah. You are glad to find me?"
There was pleading in his tone--earnest pleading, for the terrible
conviction was fastening itself upon him, that not as they once parted
had he and Adah met. For full five minutes Adah lay upon the hay, her
whole soul going out in a prayer of thankfulness for her great joy, and
for strength to bear the bitterness mingling with her joy. Her face was
very white when she lifted it up at last, but her manner was composed,
and she questioned the doctor calmly of Spring Bank, of Alice, of Hugh,
of Anna, but could not trust herself to say much to him of Willie, lest
her calmness should give way, and a feeling spring up in her heart of
something like affection for Willie's father. Alas, for the miserable
man. He had found his wife, his Adah, but there was between them a gulf
which his own act had built, and which he never more might pass. He
began to suspect it, and ere she had finished the story of her
wanderings, which at his request she told, he knew there was no
pulsation of her heart which beat for him. He asked her where she had
been since she fled from Terrace Hill, and how she came to be in Mrs.
Ellsworth's family.
There was a moment's hesitancy, as if she were deciding how much to tell
him of the past, and then resolving to keep nothing back which he might
know, she told him how, with a stunned heart and giddy brain, she had
gone to Albany, and mingling with the crowd had mechanically followed
them down to a boat just starting for New York. That, by some means, she
never knew how, she found herself in the saloon, and seated next to a
feeble, deformed little girl, who lay upon the sofa, and whose sweet,
childish voice said to her pityingly:
"Does your head ache, lady, or what makes you so white?"
She had responded to that appeal, talking kindly to the little girl,
between whom and herself the friendliest of relations were established
and whose name she learned was Jenny Ellsworth. The mother she did not
then see, as, during the journey down the river she was suffering from a
nervous headache, and kept her room. From the child and child's nurse,
however, she heard that Mrs. Ellsworth was going ere long to Europe, and
was anxious to secure some young and competent person to act in the
capacity of Jenny's governess. Instantly Adah's decision was made. Once
in New York she would by letter apply for the situation, for nothing
then could so well suit her state of mind as a tour to Europe, where she
would be far away from all she had ever known. Very adroitly she
ascertained Mrs. Ellsworth's address, wrote to her a note the day
following her arrival in New York, and the day following that, found her
in Mrs. Ellsworth's parlor at the Brevoort House, where for a few days
she was stopping. She had been greatly troubled to know what name to
give, but finally resolved to take her own, the one by which she was
known ere George Hastings crossed her path. Adah Maria Gordon was, as
she supposed, her real name, so in her note to Mrs. Ellsworth she signed
herself "Maria Gordon," omitting the Adah, which might lead to her being
recognized. From her little girl Mrs. Ellsworth had heard much of the
sweet young lady, who was so kind to her on the boat, and was thus
already prepossessed in her favor.
Adah did not tell Dr. Richards, and perhaps she did not herself know how
surprised and delighted Mrs. Ellsworth was with the fair, girlish
creature, announced to her as Miss Gordon, and who won her heart before
five minutes were gone, making her think it of no consequence to inquire
concerning her at Madam ----'s school, where she said she had been a
pupil.
"My sister must have been there at the same time," Mrs. Ellsworth had
said. "Perhaps you remember her, Augusta Stanley?"
Yes, Miss Gordon remembered her well, but added modestly:
"She may have forgotten me, as I was only a day scholar, and--not--not
quite her circle. I was poor."
Charmed with her frankness, Mrs. Ellsworth decided in her own mind to
take her, but, for form's sake, she would write to her sister Augusta,
recently married, and living in Milwaukee.
"Your first name is Maria," she said, taking out her pencil to write it
down.
Adah could not tell a lie, and she replied unhesitatingly:
"No, ma'am; my name is Adah Maria, but I prefer being called Maria."
Mrs. Ellsworth nodded, wrote down "Adah Maria Gordon," but in the letter
sent that day to Augusta, merely spoke of her governess in prospect as a
Miss Gordon, who had been at the same school with Augusta, asking if she
remembered her.
Yes, Augusta remembered Miss Gordon, well, a brown-eyed, sweet-faced,
conscientious little creature whom she liked so much, and whose services
her sister had better secure.
Mrs. Ellsworth hesitated no longer, and ten days after the receipt of
this letter, Adah was duly installed as governess to the delighted
little Jennie, who learned to love her gentle teacher with a love almost
amounting to idolatry.
"You were in Europe then, and that is the reason why we could not find
you," Dr. Richards said, adding, after a moment: "And Irving Stanley
went with you--was your companion all the while?"
"Yes, all the while," and Adah's cold fingers worked nervously at the
wisp of hay she was twisting in her hand. "I had seen him before--he was
in the cars when Willie and I were on our way to Terrace Hill. Willie
had the earache, and he was so kind to us both."
Adah looked fixedly now at the craven doctor, who could not meet her
glance, for well he remembered the dastardly part he had played in that
scene, where his own child was screaming with pain, and he sat selfishly
idle.
"She don't know I was there, though," he thought, and that gave him some
comfort.
But Adah did know, and she meant he should know she did. Keeping her
calm brown eyes still fixed upon him, she continued:
"I heard Mr. Stanley talking of you once to his sister, and among other
things he spoke of your dislike for children, and referred to an
occasion in the cars, when a little boy, for whom his heart ached, was
suffering acutely, and for whom you evinced no interest, except to call
him a brat, and wonder why his mother did not stay at home. I never knew
till then that you were so near to me."
"It's true, it's true," the doctor cried, tears rolling down his soiled
face; "but I never guessed it was you. Lily, I supposed it some ordinary
woman."
"So did Irving Stanley," was Adah's quiet, cutting answer; "but his
heart was open to sympathy, even for an ordinary woman."
The doctor could only moan, with his face still hidden in his hands,
until a sudden thought like a revelation flashed upon him, and
forgetting his wounded foot, he sprang like a tiger to the spot where
Adah sat, and winding his arm firmly around her, whispered hoarsely:
"Adah, Lily, tell me you love this Irving Stanley. My wife loves another
than her husband."
Adah did not struggle to release herself from his close grasp. It was
punishment she ought to bear, she thought, but her whole soul loathed
that close embrace, and the loathing expressed itself in the tone of her
voice, as she replied:
"Until within an hour I did not suppose you were my husband. You said
you were not in that letter; I have it yet; the one in which you told me
it was a mock marriage, as, by your own confession, it seems you meant
it should be."
"Oh, darling, you kill me, yet I deserve it all; but, Adah, I have
suffered enough to atone for the dreadful past; and I tried so hard to
find you. Forgive me, Lily, forgive," and falling again on his knees,
the wretched man poured forth a torrent of entreaties for her
forgiveness, her love, without which he should die.
Holding fast her cold hands, he pleaded with all his eloquence, until,
maddened by her silence, he even taunted her with loving another, while
her own husband was living.
Then Adah started, and pushing him away, sprang to her feet, while the
hot blood stained her face and neck, and a resentful fire gleamed from
her brown eyes.
"It is not well for you to reproach me with faithlessness," she said,
"you, who have dealt so treacherously by me; you, who deliberately
planned my ruin, and would have effected it but for the deeper-laid
scheme of one you say is my father. No thanks to you that I am a lawful
wife. You did not make me so of your own free will. You did to me the
greatest wrong a man can do a woman, then cruelly deserted me, and now
you would chide me for respecting another more than I do you."
"Not respecting him, Adah, no, not for respecting him. You should do
that. He's worthier than I; but, oh, Adah, Lily, wife, mother of my boy,
do you love Irving Stanley?"
He was sobbing bitterly, and the words came between the sobs, while he
tried to clutch her dress. Staggering backward against the wooden beam,
Adah leaned there for support, while she replied:
"You would not understand if I should tell you the terrible struggle it
was for me to be thrown each day in the society of one as noble, as good
as Irving Stanley, and not come at last to feel for him as a poor
governess ought never to feel for the handsome, gifted brother of her
employer. Oh, George, I prayed against it so much, prayed to be kept
from the sin, if it were a sin, to have Irving Stanley mingled with
every thought. But the more I prayed, the more the temptation seemed
thrust upon me. The kinder, gentler, more attentive, grew his manners
toward me. He never treated me as a mere governess. It was more like an
equal at first, and then like a younger sister, so that few strangers
took me for a subordinate, so kind were both Mrs. Ellsworth and her
brother."
"And he," the doctor gasped, looking wistfully in her face, "does he--do
you think he loves you?"
Adah colored crimson, but answered frankly:
"He never told me so; never said to me a word which a husband should not
hear; but--sometimes I've fancied, I've feared, I've left him abruptly
lest he should speak, for that I know would bring the crisis I so
dreaded. I must tell him the whole then, and by my dread of doing this,
I knew he was more than a friend to me. I was fearful at first that he
might recognise me, but I was much thinner than when I saw him in the
cars, while my hair, purposely worn short, and curling in my neck,
changed my looks materially, so that he only wondered whom I was so much
like, but never suspected the truth."
There was silence, a moment, and then the doctor asked: "How is all this
to end?"
The question brought into Adah's eyes a fearful look of anguish, but she
did not answer, and the doctor spoke again.
"Have I found Lily only to lose her?"
Still there was no reply, and the doctor continued: "You are my wife,
Adah. No power can undo that, save death, and you are my child's mother.
For Willie's sake, oh, Adah, for Willie's sake, forgive."
When he appealed to her as his wife, Adah seemed turning into stone; but
the mention of Willie touched the mother within that girlish woman, and
the iceberg melted at once.
"For Willie, my boy," she gasped, "I could do almost anything; I could
die so willingly but--but--oh, George, that ever we should come to this.
You a deserter, a traitor to your country--lamed, disabled, wholly in
my power, and begging of me, your outcast wife, for the love which
surely is dead--dead. No, George, I do forgive, but never, never more
can I be to you a wife."
There was a rising resentment now in the doctor's manner, as he answered
reproachfully: "Then surrender me at once to the lover hunting for me.
Let him take me back where I can be shot and that will leave you free."
Adah raised her hand deprecatingly, and when he had finished, rejoined:
"You mistake Major Stanley, if you think he would marry me, knowing what
I should tell him. It's not for him that I refuse. It's for myself. I
could not bear it. I--"
"Stay, Adah, Lily, don't say you should hate me;" and the doctor's voice
was so full of anguish that Adah involuntarily advanced toward him,
standing quite near, while he begged of her to say if the past could not
be forgotten. His family were ready, were anxious to receive her. Sweet
Anna Millbrook already loved her as a sister, while he, her husband,
words could not tell his love for her. He would do whatever she
required; go back to the Federal army if she said so; seek for the
pardon he was sure to gain; fight for his country like a hero, periling
life and limb, if she would only give him the shadow of a hope.
"I must have time to think. I cannot decide alone," Adah answered, while
the doctor clutched her dress, half shrieking with terror:
"You surely will not consult him, Major Stanley?"
"No," and Adah spoke reverently, "there's a mightier friend than he. One
who has never failed me in my need. He will tell me what to do."
The doctor knew now what she meant, and with a moan he laid his head
again upon the hay, wishing, oh, so much, that the lessons taught him
when in that little attic chamber, years ago, he knelt by Adah's side,
and said with her, "Our Father," had not been all forgotten. When he
lifted up his face again, Adah was gone, but he knew she would return,
and waited patiently while just outside the door, with her fair face
buried in the sweet Virginia grass, and the warm summer sunshine falling
softly upon her, poor half-crazed Adah fought and won the fiercest
battle she had ever known, coming off conqueror over self, and feeling
sure that God had heard her earnest cry for help, and told her what to
do. There was no wavering now; her step was firm; her voice steady, as
she went back to the doctor's side, and bending over him, said:
"I will nurse you, my husband, till you are well; then you must go back
whence you came, confess your fault, rejoin your regiment, and by your
faithfulness wipe out the stain of desertion. Then, when the war is
over, or you are honorably discharged, I will--be your wife. I may not
love you at first as once I did, but I shall try, and He, who counsels
me to tell you this, will help me, I am sure."
It was almost pitiful now to see the doctor, as, spaniel-like, he
crouched at Adah's feet, kissing her hands and blessing her 'mid his
tears. "He would be worthy of her, and they should yet be so happy."
Adah suffered him to caress her for a moment, and then told him she must
go, for Mrs. Ellsworth would wonder at her long absence, and possibly
institute a search. Pressing one more kiss upon her hand the doctor
crept back to his hiding place, while Adah went slowly to the house
where she knew Irving Stanley was anxiously waiting for her. She dared
not meet him alone now, for latterly each time they had so met, she knew
she had kept at bay the declaration trembling on his lips, and which now
must never be listened to. So she stayed away from the pleasant parlor
where all the morning he sat chatting with his sister, who guessed how
much he loved the beautiful and accomplished girl, whom, by way of his
sister Augusta he now knew as the Brownie he had once seen at Madam ----'s
school, in New York.
Right-minded and high-principled, Mrs. Ellsworth had conquered any pride
she might at first have felt--any reluctance to her brother's marrying
her governess, and now like him was anxious to have it settled. But Adah
gave him no chance that day, and late in the afternoon he rode back to
his regiment, wondering at the change in Miss Gordon, and why her face
was so deadly white, and her voice so husky, as she bade him good-by.
Poor Adah! Hers was now a path of suffering, such as she had never known
before. But she did her duty to the doctor faithfully, nursing him with
the utmost care; but never expressing to him the affection she did not
feel. It was impossible to keep his presence there a secret from the two
old negroes, and knowing she could trust them, she told them of the
wounded Union soldier, enlisting their sympathies for him, and thus
procuring for him the care of older and more experienced people than
herself.
He was able at length to return, and one pleasant summer night, just
three weeks after his arrival at Sunnymead, Adah walked with him to the
woods, and kneeling with him by a running stream, whose waters farther
away would yet be crimson with the blood of our slaughtered brothers,
she commended him to God. Through the leafy branches the moonbeams were
shining, and they showed to Adah the expression of the doctor's wasted
face as he said to her at parting: "I have kissed you many times, my
darling, but you have never returned it. Please do so once, dear Lily,
for the sake of the olden time. It will make me a better soldier."
She kissed him once for the sake of the olden time, and when he
whispered, "Again for Willie's sake," she kissed him twice, and then she
bade him leave her, herself buttoning about him the soldier coat which
her own hands had cleaned and mended and made respectable. She was glad
afterward that she had done so; glad, too, that she had kissed him and
waited by the tree, where, looking backward, he could see the flutter of
her white dress until a turn in the forest path hid her from his view.