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, 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, sat in the shadow of the
Virginia woods, weary, foot-sore 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
practised 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 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, 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, 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, round 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 its arm—a basket in which she puts the eggs she knew
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 pulsation 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_; 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 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 sunk
back exhausted, just as Adah rose 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; out 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 visible 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 me, I feel
that I am to be no one’s judge. Tell me, 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 N. Y. 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,” and he uttered a scream of pain as Adah’s
hands pressed heavily 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
that 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
painful task, and sitting down upon the hay said to him,
“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 Mrs. Ellsworth
tell her brother. I had just come to her then. She was prouder toward me
than she is now, and I dared not question her. 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, 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 rouse
her, and drawing back she laid her face in the hay, and moaned.
“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 a 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, 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 was 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
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 to Europe, and was
anxious to secure some 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 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. It
had troubled her somewhat to know what name to take, but she decided
finally upon Adah Gordon as the one by which she was known ere George
Hastings crossed her path, and in her note to Mrs. Ellsworth she signed
herself “A GORDON.” 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 once been a
pupil.
Naturally very impulsive and unsuspecting, Mrs. Ellsworth usually acted
upon her likes or dislikes, and Adah was soon 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. “We came home sooner than we
intended, as he was anxious to join the army. I had seen him before—he
was in the cars when Willie and I were on our way to Terrace Hill.
Willie had the ear-ache, 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
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 say
that you _hated_ children, and to push his feet from your lap. 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, you _love Irving Stanley_. My wife loves another than her
husband.”
Adah did not struggle to release herself from his grasp, 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 left him abruptly lest he should speak, for
that I knew 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 recognize 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, 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—lame, 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 Maj. 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 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 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, 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, 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 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 back 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 had
kept at bay the declaration trembling on his lips, and which must never
be listened to. So she staid 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, her daughter’s governess.
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-bye.
Poor Adah! Hers was now a path of suffering, such as she had never known
before. But she did her duty to the doctor, 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 moon-beams 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, 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.