The Southerner: A Romance of the Real Lincoln Part 77

When the strain of the first rush had ended and the time to follow the lines of ambulance wagons back to Was.h.i.+ngton drew near, the old anguish returned to torture her soul. She told herself it was all over, and yet she knew that somewhere in that vast city of tents, stretching for miles over the hills and valleys about Falmouth Heights, was John Vaughan. She had put him resolutely out of her life. She said this a hundred times--yet she was quietly rejoicing that his name was not on that black roll of seventeen thousand. All doubt had been removed by the announcement in the _Republican_ of his promotion to the rank of Captain for gallantry on the field of Chancellorsville.

She hoped that he had freed himself at last from evil a.s.sociates. She couldn't be sure--there were ugly rumors flying about the hospital of the use of whiskey in the army. These rumors were particularly busy with Hooker's name.

Seated alone in the quiet moonlight before the field hospital, the balmy air of the South which she drew in deep breaths was bringing back the memory of another now. The pickets had been at their usual friendly tricks of trading tobacco and coffee and exchanging newspapers. From a Richmond paper she had just learned that Ned Vaughan had fought in Lee's army at Chancellorsville. Somewhere beyond the silver mirror of the Rappahannock he was with the men in grey to-night. Her heart in its loneliness went out to him in a wave of tender sympathy. Again she lived over the tragic hours when she had fought the battle for his life and won at last at the risk of her own.

A soldier saluted and handed her a piece of brown wrapping paper, neatly folded. Its corner was turned down in the old-fas.h.i.+oned way of a schoolboy's note to his sweetheart.

She went to the light and saw with a start it was in Ned Vaughan's handwriting. She read, with eager, sparkling eyes.

"DEAREST: I've just seen in a Was.h.i.+ngton paper which our boys traded for that you are here. I must see you, and to-night. I can't wait. There will be no danger to either of us. Our pickets are on friendly terms. I've arranged everything with some good tobacco for your fellows. Follow the man who hands you this note to the river. A boat will be ready for you there with one of my men to row you across. I will be waiting for you at the old mill beside the burned pier of the railroad bridge.

"NED."

Betty's heart gave a bound of joy, and in half an hour she was standing on the s.h.i.+ning sh.o.r.e of the river before the old mill. Its great wheel was slowly turning, the water falling in broken crystals sparkling in the moonlight. Through the windows of the brick walls peered the black-mouthed guns trained across the water.

She looked about timidly for a moment while the man in grey who had rowed her over made fast his boat.

He tipped his old slouch hat:

"This way, Miss."

He led her down close, to the big wheel, crossed the stream of water which poured from its moss-covered buckets, and there, beneath an apple tree in bloom, stood a straight, soldierly figure in the full blue uniform of a Federal Captain, exactly as she had seen Ned Vaughan that night in the Old Capitol Prison.

The soldier saluted and Ned said:

"Wait, Sergeant, at the water's edge with your boat."

He was gone and Ned grasped both Betty's hands and kissed them tenderly:

"My glorious little heroine! I just had to tell you again that the life you saved is all, all yours. You are glad to see me--aren't you?"

"I can't tell you how glad, Boy! How brown and well you look!"

"Yes, the hard life somehow agrees with me. It's a queer thing, this army business. It makes some men strong and clean, and others into beasts."

"And why did you wear that dangerous uniform, sir?" she asked, with a smile.

"In honor of a beautiful Yankee girl, my guest. I've not worn it since that night, Betty, until now----"

His voice dropped to a whisper:

"It has been a holy thing to me, this blue uniform that cost me the life which you gave back at the risk of your own----"

"I was in no danger. I had powerful friends."

"They might not have been powerful enough--but it's sacred for another reason--as precious to me as the seamless robe for which the Roman soldiers cast lots on Calvary--I wore it in the one glorious moment in which I held you in my arms, dearest."

"O Ned, Boy, you shouldn't be so foolis.h.!.+"

"I'm not. I'm sensible. I've done no more scout work since. I said that my life was yours and I had no right to place it again in such mad danger----"

"And so you face death on the field!"

"Yes, come sit here, dearest, I've made a seat for you of the broken timbers from the bridge. We can see the moonlit river and the lazy turn of the old wheel while we talk."

He led her to the seat in the edge of the moonlight and Betty drew a deep breath of joy as she drank in the beauty of the entrancing scene.

The shadows of night had hidden the scars of war. Only the tall stone piers standing, lone sentinels in the river, marked its ravages where the bridge had fallen. The moon had flung her sparkling silver veil over the blood-stained world.

"You know," Ned went on eagerly, "those big pillars won't stand there naked long. We'll put the timbers back on them soon and run our trains through to Was.h.i.+ngton----"

"Sh, Ned," Betty whispered, touching his arm lightly, "be still a moment, I want to feel this wonderful scene!"

The air was sweet with the perfume of apple blossoms, the water from the old wheel fell with silvery echo and ran rippling over the stones into the river. Somewhere above the cliff a negro was playing a banjo and far down the river, beside a little cottage torn with shot and sh.e.l.l, but still standing, a mocking-bird was singing in the lilac bushes.

The girl looked at Ned with curious tenderness, and wondered if she had known her own heart after all--wondered if the fierce blinding pa.s.sion she had once felt for his brother had been the divine thing that links the soul to the eternal? A strange spiritual beauty enveloped this younger man and drew her to-night with new power. There was something restful in its mystery. She wondered vaguely if it were possible to love two men at the same moment. She could almost swear it were. If she had never really loved John Vaughan at all! Why had his powerful, brutal personality drawn her with such terrible power? Was such a force love?

It was something different from the tender charm which enveloped the slender straight young figure by her side now. She felt this with increasing certainty.

Ned took her hand and kissed the tips of her fingers.

The touch of his lips sent a thrill through her heart. It was sweet to be wors.h.i.+pped in this old-fas.h.i.+oned, foolish way. Whatever her own feeling's might be, this was love--in its divinest flowering. It drew her to-night with all but resistless tug.

"May I break the silence now, dearest, to ask you something?" he said softly.

"Yes."

"Haven't you realized yet that you are going to be mine?"

"Not in the way you mean----"

"But you are, dearest, you are!" he whispered rapturously. "You love me.

You just haven't really faced the thing yet and put it to the test in your heart. War has separated us, that's all. But there's never been a moment's doubt in my soul since I looked into your eyes that night in the old prison. Their light made the cell s.h.i.+ne with the glory of heaven! And when you kissed me, dearest----"

"You know why I did that, Ned," she murmured.

"You're fooling yourself, darling! You couldn't have done what you did, if you hadn't loved me. It came to me in a flash as I held you in my arms and pressed you to my heart. There can be no other woman on earth for me after that moment. I lived a life time with it. Say you'll be mine, dearest?"

"But I don't love you, Ned, as you love me----"

"I don't ask it now. I can wait. The revelation will come to you at last in the fullness of time--promise me, dearest--promise me!"

For an hour he poured into her ears his pa.s.sionate tender plea, until the rapture of his love, the perfumed air of the spring night, and the s.h.i.+mmer of moonlit waters stole into her lonely heart with resistless charm.

She lifted her lips to his at last and whispered:

"Yes."