To say that Paul Abbot was made very happy over his most unexpected
promotion would be putting it mildly. He hates to leave the old
regiment, but he has done hard fighting, borne several hard knocks, is
still weak and shaky from recent wounds; and to be summoned to
Washington, there to meet his proud father, and to receive his
appointment as assistant adjutant-general from the hands of the most
distinguished representative "in Congress assembled" of his
distinguished state, is something to put new life into a young soldier's
heart. Duties for him there are none at the moment: he is to get strong
and well before again taking the field, and, for the time being, he is
occupying a room at Willard's adjoining that of his father. His arm is
still in a sling; his walk is still slow and somewhat painful; he has
ordered his new uniform, and meantime has procured the staff
shoulder-straps and buttons, and put them on his sack-coat; he has had
many letters to write, and much pleasant congratulation and compliment
to acknowledge; and so the three or four days succeeding his arrival
pass rapidly by. One afternoon he returns from a drive with his father;
they have been out to visit friends in camp, and talk over home news,
and now he comes somewhat slowly up the stairs of the crowded hotel to
the quiet of the upper corridors. He smiles to himself at the increasing
ease with which he mounts the brass-bound steps, and is thankful for the
health and elasticity returning to him. He has just had the obnoxious
beard removed, too; and freshly shaved, except where his blond mustache
shades the short upper lip, with returning color and very bright, clear
eyes, the young major of staff is a most presentable-looking youth as he
stops a moment to rest at the top of the third flight. His undress
uniform is decidedly becoming, and all the more interesting because of
the sling that carries his wounded arm. And now, after a moment's
breathing-spell, he walks slowly along the carpeted corridor, and turns
into the hallway leading to his own room. Along this he goes some twenty
paces or more, when there comes quickly into view from a side gallery
the figure of a tall, slight, and graceful girl. She has descended some
little flight of stairs, for he could hear the patter of her slippered
feet, and the swish of her skirts before she appeared. Now, with rapid
step she is coming straight towards him, carrying some little glass
phials in her hand. The glare of the afternoon sun is blazing in the
street, and at the window behind her. Against this glare she is revealed
only _en silhouette_. Of her features the young soldier can see nothing.
On the contrary, as he is facing the light, Major Abbot realizes that
every line of his countenance is open to her gaze. Before he has time to
congratulate himself that recent shaving and the new straps have made
him more presentable, he is astonished to see the darkly-outlined figure
halt short: he sees the slender hands fly up to her face in sudden panic
or shock; crash go the phials in fragments on the floor, and the young
lady, staggering against the wall, is going too--some stifled
exclamation on her lips.
Abbot is quick, even when crippled. He springs to her side just in time
to save. He throws his left arm around her, and has to hug her close to
prevent her slipping through his clasp--a dead weight--to the floor. She
has fainted away, he sees at a glance, and, looking about him, he finds
a little alcove close at hand; he knows it well, for there on the sofa
he has spent several restful hours since his arrival. Thither he
promptly bears her; gently lays her down; quickly opens the window to
give her air; then steps across the hall for aid. Not a soul is in
sight. His own room is but a few paces away, and thither he hastens;
returns speedily with a goblet of ice-water in his hand, and a slender
flask of cologne tucked under his arm. Kneeling by the sofa, he gently
turns her face to the light, and sprinkles it with water; then bathes,
with cologne, the white temples and soft, rippling, sunny hair. How
sweet a face it is that lies there, all unconscious, so close to his
beating heart! Though colorless and marble-like, there is beauty in
every feature, and signs of suffering and pain in the dark circles about
the eyes and in the lines at the corners of the exquisite mouth. Even as
he clumsily but most assiduously mops with his one available hand and
looks vaguely around for feminine assistance, Major Abbot is conscious
of a feeling of proprietorship and confidence that is as unwarranted,
probably, as it is new. 'Tis only a faint, he is certain. She will come
to in a moment, so why be worried? But then, of course, 'twill be
embarrassing and painful to her not to find some sympathetic female face
at hand when she does revive; and he looks about him for a bell-rope:
none nearer than the room, and he hates to leave her. At last comes a
little shivering sigh, a long gasp. Then he holds the goblet to her lips
and begs her to sip a little water, and, somehow, she does, and with
another moment a pair of lovely eyes has opened, and she is gazing
wildly into his.
"Lie still one minute," he murmurs. "You have been faint; I will bring
your friends."
But a little hand feebly closes on his wrist. She is trying to speak;
her lips are moving, and he bends his handsome head close to hers;
perhaps she can tell him whom to summon.
But he starts back, amazed, when the broken, half-intelligible, almost
inaudible words reach his ears,
"Paul! Papa--said--you were killed. Oh! he will be so glad!"
And then comes a burst of tears.
[Illustration: "_Then bathes, with cologne, the white temples and soft,
rippling, sunny hair._"]
Abbot rises to his feet and hurries into the hall. He is bewildered by
her words. He feels that it must be some case of mistaken identity,
but--how strange a coincidence! Close by the fragments of the phials he
finds a door key and the presumable number of her room. Only ten steps
away from the little flight of stairs he finds a corresponding door,
and, next, an open room. Looking therein, he sees a gentle, matronly
woman seated by a bedside, slowly fanning some recumbent invalid. She
puts her fingers on her lips, warningly, as she sees the uniform at her
door.
"Do not wake him, it is the first sound sleep he has had for days," she
says. "Is this the army doctor?"
"No," he whispers, "a young lady has just fainted down in the next
corridor. Her room adjoins this. Do you know her?"
"Oh, Heaven! I might have known it. Poor child, she is utterly worn out.
This is her father. Will you stay here just a few moments? His son was a
soldier, too, and was killed--and so was her lover--and it has nearly
killed the poor old gentleman. I'll go at once."
Still puzzling over his strange adventure, and thinking only of the
sweet face of the fainting girl, Abbot mechanically takes the fan the
nurse has resigned and slowly sweeps the circling flies away. The
invalid lies on his right side with his face to the wall; but the soft,
curling gray hair ripples under the waves of air stirred by the languid
movement of the fan. The features have not yet attracted his attention.
He is listening intently for sounds from the corridor. His thoughts are
with the girl who has so strangely moved him; so strangely called his
name and looked up into his eyes with a sweet light of recognition in
hers--with a wild thrill of delight and hope in them, unless all signs
deceive him. The color, too, that was rushing into her face, the sudden
storm of emotion that bursts in tears; what meant all this--all this in
a girl whom never before had he seen in all his life? Verily, strange
experiences were these he was going through. Only a week or so before
had not that gray-haired old doctor shown almost as deep an emotion on
meeting him at Frederick? And was he not prostrated when assured of his
mistake, and was it not hard to convince him that the letters to which
he persistently referred were forgeries? Some scoundrel who claimed to
know his son was striving to bleed him for money, probably, and using,
of all others, the name of Paul Abbot. And this poor old gentleman here
had also lost a son, and the sweet, fragile-looking girl a lover! How
peacefully the old man sleeps, thinks Abbot, as he glances a moment
around the room. There are flowers on the table near the open window;
books, too, which, perhaps, she had tried to read aloud. The window
opens out over Pennsylvania Avenue, and the hum and bustle of thronging
life comes floating up from below; a roar of drums is growing louder
every minute, and presently bursts upon the ear as though, just issuing
from a neighboring street, the drummers were marching forth upon the
avenue. Abbot glances at his patient, fearful lest the noise should wake
him, but he sleeps the sleep of exhausted nature, and the soldier in his
temporary nurse prompts him to steal to the window and look down upon
the troops. They are marching south, along Fourteenth Street--a regiment
going over to the fortifications beyond the Long Bridge, and, after a
glance, Abbot steps quickly back. On the table nearest the window lies a
dainty writing-case, a woman's, and the flap is down on a half-finished
letter. On the letter, half disclosed, is the photograph of an officer.
It is strangely familiar as Abbot steps towards it. Then--the roar of
the drums seems deafening; the walls of the little room seem turning
upside down; his brain is in some strange and sudden whirl; but there in
his hands he holds, beyond all question--his own picture--a photograph
by Brady, taken when he was in Washington during the previous summer. He
has not recovered his senses when there is an uneasy movement at the
bed. The gray-haired patient turns wearily and throws himself on the
other side, and now, though haggard and worn with suffering, there is no
forgetting that sorrow-stricken old face. In an instant Major Abbot has
recognized his visitor of the week before. There before him lies Doctor
Warren. Who--_who_ then is _she_?