I walked the next mile thoughtfully, pondering over those vague hopes and plans with which Caton's optimism had inspired me. Then the inevitable reaction came. The one thing upon which he built so happily had been denied me,--the woman I loved was the wife of another. I might not even dream of her in my loneliness and poverty; the remembrance of her could be no incentive to labor and self-denial. The Lieutenant's chance words, kindly as they were spoken, only opened wider the yawning social chasm between us. The greatest mercy would be for us never again to meet.
I bent my head to keep the westering sun from my eyes, and breathing the thick red dust, I trudged steadily forward. Suddenly there sounded behind me the thud of hoofs, while I heard a merry peal of laughter, accompanied by gay exchange of words. I drew aside, leading my horse into a small thicket beside the road to permit the cavalcade to pass. It was a group of perhaps a dozen,--three or four Federal officers, the remainder ladies, whose bright dresses and smiling faces made a most winsome sight. They glanced curiously aside at me as they galloped past. But none paused, and I merely glanced at them with vague interest, my thoughts elsewhere. Suddenly a horse seemed to draw back from out the centre of the fast disappearing party.
"Ah, but really, you know, we cannot spare you," a man's voice protested.
"But you must. No, Colonel, this chances to be a case where I prefer being alone," was the quiet reply. "Do not wait, please; I will either rejoin you shortly or ride directly to the camp."
I had led my limping horse out into the road once more to resume my journey, paying scarcely the slightest attention to what was taking place, for my head was again throbbing to the hot pulse of the sun. The party of strangers rode slowly away into the enveloping dust cloud, and I had forgotten them, when a low, sweet voice spoke close beside me: "Captain Wayne, I know you cannot have forgotten me."
She was leaning down from the saddle, and as I glanced eagerly up into her dear eyes they were swimming with tears.
"Forgotten! Never for one moment," I exclaimed; "yet I failed to perceive your presence until you spoke."
"You appeared deeply buried in thought as we rode by, but I could not leave you without a word when I knew you must feel so bad. I have thought of you so often, and am more glad than I can tell to know you have survived the terrible fighting of these last few weeks. But you look so worn and haggard."
"I am wearied--yes," I admitted. "But that will pass away. My meeting again with you will be a memory of good cheer; and I found no little encouragement from a conversation just held with Lieutenant Caton."
She looked at me frankly, her eyes cleared of the mist. "Were you indeed thinking hopefully just now? You appeared so grave I feared it was despair."
"It was a mixture of both, Mrs. Brennan. My own known condition furnishes sufficient despair, while Caton's excessive happiness yields a goodly measure of joy, which I have not yet entirely lost. Nothing glorifies life, even in its darkest hour, as the success of love."
She glanced at my face shyly. "Undoubtedly the Lieutenant is in the seventh heaven at present," she admitted slowly. "His Celia has led him a merry chase these many months, before she made full surrender; but that merely makes final victory the sweeter."
"She retains the disposition of a child,"
"But the heart of a woman is back of all her playfulness. You are upon your way home?"
"I have just been paroled, Mrs. Brennan, After four years of war I am at last free, and have turned my face toward all that is left of my childhood's home,--a few weed-grown acres. I scarcely know whether I am luckier than the men who died."
I saw the tears glistening again in her earnest eyes. "Oh, but you are, Captain Wayne," she exclaimed quickly. "You have youth and love to inspire you--for your mother yet lives. Truly it makes my heart throb to think of the upbuilding which awaits you men of the South. It is through such as you--soldiers trained by stern duty--that these desolated States are destined to rise above the ashes of war into a greatness never before equalled. I feel that now, in this supreme hour of sacrifice, the men and women of the South are to exhibit before the world a courage greater than that of the battlefield. It is to be the marvel of the nation, and the thought and pride of it should make you strong."
"It may indeed be so; I can but believe it, as the prophecy comes from your lips. I might even find courage to do my part in this redemption were you ever at hand to inspire."
She laughed gently. "I am not a Virginian, Captain Wayne, but a most loyal daughter of the North; yet if I so inspire you by my mere words, surely it is not so far to my home but you might journey there to listen to my further words of wisdom."
"I have not forgotten the permission already granted me, and it is a temptation not easily cast aside. You return North soon?"
"Within a week."
I hardly know what prompted me to voice my next question,--Fate, perhaps, weary of being so long mocked,--for I felt small interest in her probable answer.
"Do you expect your husband's release from duty by that time?"
She gave a quick start of surprise, drawing in her breath as though suddenly choked. Then the rich color overspread her face. "My husband?" she ejaculated in voice barely audible, "my husband? Surely you cannot mean Major Brennan?"
"But I certainly do," I said, wondering what might be wrong. "Whom else could I mean?"
"And you thought that?" she asked incredulously. "Why, how could you?"
"How should I have thought otherwise?" I exclaimed, my eyes eagerly searching her downcast face. "Why, Caton told me it was so the night I was before Sheridan; he confirmed it again in conversation less than an hour ago. Colgate, my Lieutenant, who met you in a Baltimore hospital, referred to him the same way. If I have been deceived through all these months, surely everything and everybody conspired to that end,--you bore the same name; you told me plainly you were married; you wore a wedding-ring; you resided while at camp in his quarters; you called each other Frank and Edith. From first to last not one word has been spoken by any one to cause me to doubt that you were his wife."
As I spoke these words hastily, vehemently, the flood of color receded from her face, leaving it pale as marble. Her lips parted, but failed in speech.
"Believe me, Mrs. Brennan, the mistake was a most innocent one. You are not angry?"
"Angry? Oh, no! but it all seems so strange, and it hurts me a little. Surely I have done nothing to forward this unhappy deceit?"
For a moment she bowed her head upon her hands as though she would hide her face from me, conceal the depth of her emotion. Then she looked up once more, smiling through her tears.
"I recall starting to explain all this to you once," she said, striving vainly to appear at ease. "It was when we were interrupted by the sudden coming upon us of Mr. and Mrs. Bungay. Yet I supposed you knew, that you would have learned the facts from others. The last time we were together I told you I did not wholly understand you. It is no wonder, when you thought that of me. But I understand now, and know you must have despised me."
"No! no!" I protested warmly, forgetting all I lacked and recalling only my deep love for her. "It was never that. Not one word or act between us has ever lowered you an iota in my esteem. You have always been my lady of the North, and from the first night of our meeting--out yonder, amid the black mountains--I have respected and honored you as one worthy of all sacrifice, all love."
Her eyes were drooping now, and hidden from me behind their long dark lashes.
"I am going to tell you my story, Captain Wayne," she said quietly. "It is not a pleasant task under these circumstances, yet one I owe you as well as myself. This may prove our last meeting, and we must not part under the shadow of a mistake, however innocently it may have originated. I am the only child of Edwin Adams, a manufacturer, of Stonington. Connecticut. My father was also for several terms a member of Congress from that State. As the death of my mother occurred when I was but five years old, all my father's love was lavished upon me, and I grew up surrounded by every advantage which abundant means and high social position could supply. During all those earlier years my playmate and most intimate companion was Charles Brennan, a younger brother of the Major, and the son of Judge David Brennan of the State Supreme Court."
She had been speaking slowly, her eyes turned aside, as though recalling carefully each fact before utterance. Now her glance met mine, and a deeper color sprang into her clear cheeks.
"As we grew older his friendship for me ripened into love, a feeling which I found it impossible to return. I liked him greatly, valued him most highly, continued his constant companion, yet experienced no desire for closer relationship. My position was rendered the more difficult as it had long been the dream of the heads of both houses that our two families, with their contingent estates, should be thus united, and constant urging tried my decision severely. Nor would Charles Brennan give up hope. When he was twenty and I barely seventeen a most serious accident occurred,--a runaway,--in which Charles heroically preserved my life, but himself received injuries, from which death in a short time was inevitable. In those last lingering days of suffering, but one hope, one ambition, seemed to possess his mind,--the desire to make me his wife, and leave me the fortune which was his through the will of his mother. I cannot explain to you, Captain Wayne, the struggle I passed through, seeking to do what was right and best; but finally, moved by my sympathy, eager to soothe his final hours of suffering, and urged by my father, I consented to gratify his wish, and we were united in marriage while he was on his deathbed. Two days later he passed away."
She paused, her voice faltering, her eyes moist with unshed tears. Scarce knowing it, my hand sought hers, where it rested against the saddle pommel.
"His brother" she resumed slowly, "now Major Brennan, but at that time a prosperous banker in Hartford, a man nearly double the age of Charles, was named as administrator of the estate, to retain its management until I should attain the age of twenty-one. Less than a year later my father also died. The final settlement of his estate was likewise entrusted to Frank Brennan, and he was made my guardian. Quite naturally I became a resident of the Brennan household, upon the same standing as a daughter, being legally a ward of my husband's brother. Major Brennan's age, and his thoughtful kindness to me, won my respect, and I gradually came to look upon him almost as an elder brother, turning to him in every time of trouble for encouragement and help. It was the necessity of our business relation which first compelled me to come South and join Major Brennan in camp: as he was unable to obtain leave of absence, I was obliged to make the trip. Not until that time, Captain Wayne,--indeed, not until after our experience at Mountain View,--did I fully realize that Major Brennan looked upon me otherwise than as a guardian upon his ward. The awakening pained me greatly, especially as I was obliged to disappoint him deeply; yet I seek to retain his friendship, for my memory of his long kindness must ever abide. I am sure you will understand, and not consider me unwomanly in thus making you a confidant."
"I can never be sufficiently grateful that you have thus trusted me," I said with an earnestness that caused her to lower her questioning eyes. "It has been a strange misunderstanding between us, Mrs. Brennan, but your words have brought a new hope to one disheartened Confederate soldier."
She did not answer, and with a rush there came before me the barrier of poverty existing between us. I glanced from my ragged, faded clothing to her immaculate attire, and my heart failed.
"I must be content with hope," I said at last; "yet I am rich compared with thousands of others; infinitely rich in comparison with what I dreamed myself an hour ago." I held out my hand. "There will come a day when I shall answer your invitation to the North."
"You are on your way home?"
"Yes; to take a fresh hold upon life, trusting that sometime in the early future I may feel worthy to come to you."
"Worthy?" she echoed the word, a touch of scorn in her voice, her eyes dark with feeling. "Worthy? Captain Wayne, I sometimes think you the most unselfish man I ever knew. Must the sacrifices, then, always be made by you? Can you not conceive it possible that I also might like to yield up something? Is it possible you deem me a woman to whom money is a god?"
"No," I said, my heart bounding to the scarce hidden meaning of her impetuous words, "nor have the sacrifices always been mine: you were once my prisoner."
She bent down, her very soul in her eyes, and rested one white hand upon my shoulder. For an instant we read each other's heart in silence, then shyly she said, "I am still your prisoner."
THE END