He had passed the quarters of the signal corps before the thought of the
letter he had just written came to his mind. Then he stopped short, gave
one agonizing glance toward his barracks only a few feet away, realized
that it was nearly time for bed call and that he could not possibly make
it if he went back, then whirled about and started out on a wild run like
a madman over the ground he had just traveled. He was not conscious of
carrying on a train of thought as he ran, his only idea was to get to the
Y.M.C.A. hut before the man had left with the letter. Never should his
childhood's enemy have that letter to sneer over!
All the pleasant phrases which had flowed from his pen so easily but a
few moments before seemed to flare now in letters of fire before his
blood-shot eyes as he bounded over the ground. To think he should have
lowered himself and weakened his position so, as to write to the girl who
was soon to be the wife of that contemptible puppy!
The bugles began to sound taps here and there in the barracks as he flew
past, but they meant nothing to him. Breathless he arrived at the
Y.M.C.A. hut just as the last light was being put out. A dark figure
stood on the steps as he halted entirely winded, and tried to gasp out:
"Where is Mr. Hathaway?" to the assistant who was locking up.
"Oh, he left five minutes after you did," said the man with a yawn. "The
rector came by in his car and took him along. Say, you'll be late getting
in, Corporal, taps sounded almost five minutes ago."
With a low exclamation of disgust and dismay Cameron turned and started
back again in a long swinging stride, his face flushing hotly in the dark
over his double predicament. He had gone back for nothing and got himself
subject to a calling down, a thing which he had avoided scrupulously
since coming to camp, but he was so miserable over the other matter that
it seemed a thing of no moment to him now. He was altogether occupied
with metaphorically kicking himself for having answered that letter; for
having mailed it so soon without ever stopping to read it over or give
himself a chance to reconsider. He might have known, he might have
remembered that Ruth Macdonald was no comrade for him; that she was a
neighbor of the Wainwright's and would in all probability be a friend of
the lieutenant's. Not for all that he owned in the world or hoped to own,
would he have thus laid himself open to the possibility of having
Wainwright know any of his inner thoughts. He would rather have lived and
died unknown, unfriended, than that this should come to pass.
And she? The promised wife of Wainwright! Could it be? She must have
written him that letter merely from a fine friendly patronage. All right,
of course, from her standpoint, but from his, gall and wormwood to his
proud spirit. Oh, that he had not answered it! He might have known! He
should have remembered that she had never been in his class. Not that his
people were not as good as hers, and maybe better, so far as intellectual
attainments were concerned; but his had lost their money, had lived a
quiet life, and in her eyes and the eyes of her family were very likely
as the mere dust of the earth. And now, just now when war had set its
seal of sacrifice upon all young men in uniform, he as a soldier had
risen to a kind of deified class set apart for hero worship, nothing
more. It was not her fault that she had been brought up that way, and
that he seemed so to her, and nothing more. She had shown her beautiful
spirit in giving him the tribute that seemed worthiest to her view. He
would not blame her, nor despise her, but he would hold himself aloof as
he had done in the past, and show her that he wanted no favors, no
patronage. He was sufficient to himself. What galled him most was to
think that perhaps in the intimacy of their engagement she might show his
letter to Wainwright, and they would laugh together over him, a poor
soldier, presuming to write as he had done to a girl in her station. They
would laugh together, half pitifully--at least the woman would be
pitiful, the man was likely to sneer. He could see his hateful mustache
curl now with scorn and his little eyes twinkle. And he would tell her
all the lies he had tried to put upon him in the past. He would give her
a wrong idea of his character. He would rejoice and triumph to do so! Oh,
the bitterness of it! It overwhelmed him so that the little matter of
getting into his bunk without being seen by the officer in charge was
utterly overlooked by him.
Perhaps some good angel arranged the way for him so that he was able to
slip past the guards without being challenged. Two of the guards were
talking at the corner of the barracks with their backs to him at the
particular second when he came in sight. A minute later they turned back
to their monotonous march and the shadow of the vanishing corporal had
just disappeared from among the other dark shadows of the night
landscape. Inside the barracks another guard welcomed him eagerly without
questioning his presence there at that hour:
"Say, Cam, how about day after to-morrow? Are you free? Will you take my
place on guard? I want to go up to Philadelphia and see my girl, and I'm
sure of a pass, but I'm listed for guard duty. I'll do the same for you
sometime."
"Sure!" said Cameron heartily, and swung up stairs with a sudden
realization that he had been granted a streak of good luck. Yet somehow
he did not seem to care much.
He tiptoed over to his bunk among the rows of sleeping forms, removed
from it a pair of shoes, three books, some newspapers and a mess kit
which some lazy comrades had left there, and threw himself down with
scant undressing. It seemed as though a great calamity had befallen him,
although when he tried to reason it out he could not understand how
things were so much changed from what they had been that morning before
he received the letter. Ruth Macdonald had never been anything in his
life but a lovely picture. There was no slightest possibility that she
would ever be more. She was like a distant star to be admired but never
come near. Had he been fool enough to have his head turned by her writing
that kind letter to him? Had he even remotely fancied she would ever be
anything nearer to him than just a formal friend who occasionally stooped
to give a bright smile or do a kindness? Well, if he had, he needed this
knockdown blow. It might be a good thing that it came so soon before he
had let this thing grow in his imagination; but oh, if it had but come a
bit sooner! If it had only been on the way over to the Y.M.C.A. hut
instead of on the way back that letter would never have been written! She
would have set him down as a boor perhaps, but what matter? What was she
to him, or he to her? Well--perhaps he would have written a letter
briefly to thank her for her offer of knitting, but it would have been an
entirely different letter from the one he did write. He ground his teeth
as he thought out the letter he should have written: