Ailsa Paige: A Novel

by Robert W. Chambers

  CHAPTER XIV

  The tremendous exodus continued; regiment after regiment packedknapsacks, struck tents, loaded their waggons and marched backthrough the mud toward Alexandria, where transports were waiting inhundreds.

  The 3rd Zouaves were scheduled to leave early. Celia had only afew hours now and then in camp with husband and son. Once or twicethey came to the hospital in the bright spring weather where newblossoms on azalea and jasmine perfumed the fields and floweringpeach orchards turned all the hills and valleys pink.

  Walking with her husband and son that last lovely evening beforethe regiment left, a hand of each clasped in her own, she strovevery hard to keep up the gaiety of appearances, tried with all hermight to keep back the starting tears, steady the lip thatquivered, the hands that trembled locked in theirs.

  They were walking together in a secluded lane that led from behindthe Farm Hospital barns to a little patch of woodland through whicha clear stream sparkled, a silent, intimate, leafy oasis amid anarmy-ridden desert, where there was only a cow to stare at them,knee deep in young mint, only a shy cardinal bird to interrupt themwith its exquisite litany.

  Their talk had been of Paige and Marye, of Paigecourt and theadvisability of selling all stock, dismissing the negroes, andclosing the place with the exception of the overseer's house. AndCelia had made arrangements to attend to it.

  "I certainly do despise travelling," she said, "but while I'm sonear, I reckon I'd better use my pass and papers and try to gothrough to Paigecourt. It's just as well to prepare for theimpossible, I suppose."

  Colonel Craig polished his eye-glasses, adjusted them, and examinedthe official papers that permitted his wife to go to her estate,pack up certain family papers, discharge the servants, close thehouse, and return through the Union lines carrying only personalbaggage.

  He said without enthusiasm: "It's inside their lines. To go thereisn't so difficult, but how about coming back? I don't want you togo, Celia."

  She explained in detail that there would be no difficulty--a littleproudly, too, when she spoke of her personal safety among her ownpeople.

  "I understand all that," he said patiently, "but nobody except thecommander-in-chief knows where this army is going. I don't wantyou to be caught in the zone of operations."

  She flushed up with a defiant little laugh. "The war isn't goingto Paigecourt, anyway," she said.

  He smiled with an effort. "I am not sure, dearest. All I am sureof is that we march in the morning, and go aboard ship atAlexandria. I _don't_ know where we are expected to land, or wherewe are going to march after we do land." . . . He smiled again,mischievously. "Even if you believe that a Yankee army is notlikely to get very far into Virginia, Paigecourt is too nearRichmond for me to feel entirely sure that you may not have anothervisit from Stephen and me before you start North."

  "Listen to the Yankee!" she cried, laughing gaily to hide thesudden dimness in her blue eyes. "My darling Yankee husband isve'y absurd, and he doesn't suspect it! Why! don't you perfec'lyridiculous Zouaves know that you'll both be back in New York befo'I am--and all tired out keeping up with the pace yo' general setsyou?"

  But when it was time to say good-bye once more, her limbs grew weakand she leaned heavily on husband and son, her nerveless feetdragging across the spring turf.

  "Oh, Curt, Curt," she faltered, her soft cheeks pressed against thestiff bullion on his sleeve and collar, "if only I had the wretchedconsolation of sending you away to fight fo' the Right--fo' God andcountry--There, darling! Fo'give me--fo'give me. I am yo' wifefirst of all--first of all, Curt. And that even comes befo'country and--God!--Yes, it does! it _does_, dear. You are allthree to me--I know no holier trinity than husband, God, and nativeland. . . . _Must_ you go so soon? So soon? . . . Where is myboy--I'm crying so I can't see either of you--Stephen! Mother'sown little boy--mother's little, little boy--oh, it is ve'yhard--ve'y hard----"

  "_Must_ you go so soon? So soon?"]

  "Steve--I think you'd better kiss your mother now"--his voicechoked and he turned his back and stood, the sun glittering on thegold and scarlet of his uniform.

  Mother and son clung, parted, clung; then Colonel Craig'sglittering sleeve was flung about them both.

  "I'll try to bring him through all right, Celia. You must believethat we are coming back."

  So they parted.

  And at three in the morning, Celia, lying in her bed, started to asitting posture. Very far away in the night reveille was soundingfor some regiment outward bound; and then the bugles blew foranother regiment and another, and another, until everywhere thedarkened world grew gaily musical with the bugle's warning.

  She crept to the window; it was too dusky to see. But in obscurityshe felt that not far away husband and son were passing throughdarkness toward the mystery of the great unknown; and there, in hernight-dress, she knelt by the sill, hour after hour, straining hereyes and listening until dawn whitened the east and the riversbegan to marshal their ghostly hosts. Then the sun rose,annihilating the phantoms of the mist and shining on columns ofmarching men, endless lines of waggons, horse-batteries, footartillery, cavalry, engineers with gabions and pontoons, and entiredivisions of blue infantry, all pouring steadily toward Alexandriaand the river, where lay the vast transport fleet at anchor,destined to carry them whither their Maker and commanding generalwilled that they should go.

  To Celia's wet eyes there seemed to be little variation in the dullblue columns with the glitter of steel flickering about them; yet,here and there a brilliant note appeared--pennons fluttering abovelances, scarfs and facings of some nearer foot battery, and, faraway toward Alexandria, vivid squares of scarlet in a green field,dimmed very little by the distance. Those were zouaves--her own,or perhaps the 5th, or the 9th from Roanoke, or perhaps the 14thBrooklyn--she could not know, but she never took her eyes from thedistant blocks and oblongs of red against the green until the woodsengulfed them.

  Ailsa still lay heavily asleep. Celia opened the door and calledher to the window.

  "Honey-bud, darling," she whispered tearfully, "did you know theLancers are leaving?"

  Ailsa's eyes flew wide open:

  "Not _his_ regiment!"

  "Are there two?"

  "Yes," said Ailsa, frightened. "That must be the 6thPennsylvania. . . . Because I think--somebody would have toldme--Colonel Arran----"

  She stared through eyes from which the mist of slumber had entirelycleared away. Then she sprang from her bed to the window:

  "Oh--_oh_!" she said half to herself, "he wouldn't go away withoutsaying something to me! He couldn't! . . . And--oh, dear--ohdear, their pennons _are_ swallow-tailed and scarlet! It lookslike his regiment--it does--it does! . . . But he wouldn't gowithout speaking to me----"

  Celia turned and looked at her.

  "Do you mean Colonel Arran?" And saw that she did not.

  For a while they stood there silently together, the soft springwind blowing over their bare necks and arms, stirring the frail,sheer fabric of their night-robes.

  Suddenly the stirring music of cavalry trumpets along the roadbelow startled them; they turned swiftly to look out upon a torrentof scarlet pennons and glancing lance points--troop after troop ofdancing horses and blue-clad riders, their flat forage caps setrakishly, bit and spur and sabre hilt glistening, the morning sunflashing golden on the lifted trumpets.

  On they came, on, on, horses' heads tossing, the ground shakingwith the mellow sound of four thousand separate hoofs,--and passed,troop on troop, a lengthening, tossing wave of scarlet across theverdure.

  Then, far away in the column, a red lance pennon swung in a circle,a blue sleeve shot up in salute and adieu. And Ailsa knew thatBerkley had seen her, and that the brightness of the young worldwas leaving her, centred there in the spark of fire that tipped hislance.

  Now she saw her lover turn in his saddle and, sitting so, ride onand on, his tall lance slanting from stirrup boot to arm loop, themorning sun bright across his face, a
nd touching each metal buttonwith fire from throat to belt.

  So her lancer rode away into the unknown; and she sat on the edgeof her bed, crying, until it was time to go on duty and sit besidethe dying in the sick wards.

  They brought her his last letter that evening.

  "You wicked little thing," it ran, "if you hadn't taught meself-respect I'd have tried to run the guard to-night, and wouldprobably have been caught and drummed out or shot. We're in abustle; orders, totally unexpected, attach us to Porter's Corps,Sykes's division of regulars. Warren's brigade, which includes, Ibelieve, the 5th Zouaves, the 10th Zouaves, 6th PennsylvaniaLancers, and 1st Connecticut Heavy Artillery.

  "We've scarcely time to get off; our baggage will never be ready,and how we're going to get to Alexandria and aboard ship is morethan I know.

  "And I'm simply furious; I'd counted on a dramatic situation,Ailsa--the soldiers farewell, loud sobs, sweetheart faints, lancerdashes away unmanly tears--'Be strong, be br-r-rave, dah-ling!Hevving watches over your Alonzo!'

  "Not so. A big brawny brute in spurs comes in the dark to stir uswith the toe of his boot. 'Silence,' he hisses, 'if you can't hearthat damn reveille, I'll punch you in the snoot, an' then mebbeyou'll spread them lop-ears o' yourn!'

  "Heaven! Your Alonzo is derided by a hireling!

  "'Pack up, you swallow-tailed, leather-seated, pig-prodding sons ofgaloots!' Thus, our first sergeant, recently of the regulars,roll-call having ended.

  "Coffeeless, soupless, tackless, we leer furtively at the two days'rations in our haversacks which we dare not sample; lick our chopsreflectively, are cruelly chidden by underlings in uniform, furtherinsulted by other underlings, are stepped on, crowded, bitten, andkicked at by our faithful Arab steeds, are coarsely huddled intoline, where officers come to gloat over us and think out furtheringenious indignities to heap upon us while we stand to horse. Andwe stand there two hours!

  "I can't keep up this artificial flow of low comedy. The plainfact of the situation is that we're being hustled toward anamphibious thing with paddle-wheels named _The Skylark_, and Ihaven't said good-bye to you.

  "Ailsa, it isn't likely that anything is going to knock my head offor puncture vital sections of me. But in case the ludicrous shouldhappen, I want you to know that a cleaner man goes before the lastCourt Marshal than would have stood trial there before he met you.

  "You are every inch my ideal of a woman--every fibre in you isutterly feminine. I adore your acquired courage, I worship yourheavenly inconsistencies. The mental pleasure I experienced withyou was measured and limited only by my own perversity and morbidself-absorption; the splendour of the passion I divine in you,unawakened, awes me, leaves me in wonder. The spiritual tonic,even against my own sickly will has freshened me by mere contactwith the world you live in; the touch of your lips and hands--ah,Ailsa--has taught me at last the language that I sneered at.

  "Well--we can never marry. How it will be with us, how end, Hewho, after all is said and done, _did_ construct us, knows now.And we will know some day, when life is burned out in us.

  "Hours, days of bitter revolt come--the old madness for you, theold recklessness of desire, the savage impatience with life, assailme still. Because, Ailsa, I would--I _could_ have made youa--well, an _interesting_ husband, anyway. You were fashioned tobe the divinest wife and . . . I'm not going on in this strain;I'll write you when I can. And for God's sake take care of yourlife. There's nothing left if you go--_nothing_.

  "I've made a will. Trooper Burgess, a comrade--my formervalet--carries a duplicate memorandum. Don't weep; I'll live tomake another. But in this one I have written you that my mother'sletters and pictures are to be yours--when I have a chance I'lldraw it in legal form. And, dear, first be perfectly sure I'mdead, and then destroy my mother's letters without reading them;and then look upon her face. And I think you will forgive me whenI tell you that it is for her sake that I can never marry. But youwill not understand why."

  Over this letter Ailsa had little time to wonder or to make herselfwretched, for that week orders came to evacuate the Farm Hospitaland send all sick and wounded to the General Hospital at Alexandria.

  A telegram arrived, too, from Miss Dix, who was authorised todetail nurses by the Secretary of War, ordering the two nurses ofSainte Ursula's Sisterhood to await letters of recommendation andwritten assignments to another hospital to be established farthersouth. But where that hospital was to be built nobody seemed toknow.

  A week later a dozen Protestant women nurses arrived at Alexandria,where they were made unwelcome. Medical directors, surgeons, wardmasters objected, bluntly declaring that they wouldn't endure a lotof women interfering and fussing and writing hysterical nonsense tothe home newspapers.

  For a while confusion reigned, intensified by the stupendousmobilisation going on all around.

  A medical officer came to the Farm Hospital and angrily informedAilsa that the staff had had enough of women in the wards; and fromforty cots forty half-dead, ghastly creatures partly rose andcursed the medical gentleman till his ears burned crimson,

  Ailsa, in her thin gray habit bearing the scarlet heart, stood inthe middle of the ward and defied him with her credentials.

  "The medical staff of the army has only to lay its case before theSecretary of War," she said, looking calmly at him, "and that iswhere the Sanitary Commission obtains its authority. Meanwhile ourorders detail us here for duty."

  "We'll see about that!" he snapped, backing away.

  "So will we," said Ailsa, smiling. But that afternoon she andLetty took an ambulance and went, in great distress of mind, to seeMother Angela, Superior of the Sisters of the Holy Cross, who hadarrived from Indiana ready to continue hospital duties on thePotomac if necessary.

  The lovely Superieure, a lady of rare culture and ability, tookAilsa's hand in hers with a sad smile.

  "Men's prejudices are hard to meet. The social structure of theworld is built on them. But men's prejudices vanish when thosesame men fall sick. The War Department has regularised ourposition; it will authorise yours. You need not be afraid."

  She smiled again reminiscently.

  "When our Sisters of the Holy Cross first appeared in the wards,the patients themselves looked at us sullenly and askance. I heardone say: 'Why can't they take off those white-winged sun-bonnets inthe wards?' And another sneered: 'Sun-bonnets! Huh! They looklike busted white parasols!' But, Mrs. Paige, our white'sun-bonnets' have already become to them the symbol they lovemost, after the flag. Be of good courage. Your silver-gray garband white cuffs will mean much to our soldiers before this battleyear is ended."

  That evening Ailsa and Letty drove back to the Parm Hospital intheir ambulance, old black Cassius managing his mules withalternate bursts of abuse and of praise. First he would beat uponhis mules with a flat stick which didn't hurt, but made a loudracket; then, satisfied, he would loll in his seat singing inmelodious and interminable recitative:

  An' I hope to gain de prommis' lan', Yaas I do, 'Deed I do. Lor' I hope to gain de prommis' lan', Dat I do, An' dar I'll flap ma wings an' take ma stan', Yaas I will, 'Deed I will, An' I'll tune ma harp an' jine de Shinin' Ban' Glory, Glory, I hope to gain de prommis' lan'!

  And over and over the same shouted melody, interrupted only by anoutburst of reproach for his mules.

  They drove back through a road which had become for miles only agreat muddy lane running between military encampments, halted atevery bridge and crossroads to exhibit their passes; they passednever-ending trains of army waggons cither stalled or rumblingslowly toward Alexandria. Everywhere were soldiers, drilling,marching, cutting wood, washing clothes, cooking, cleaning arms,mending, working on camp ditches, drains, or forts, writing lettersat the edge of shelter tents, digging graves,skylarking--everywhere the earth was covered with them.

  They passed the camp for new recruits, where the poor "fresh fish"awaited orders to join regiments in the field to which they hadbeen assigned; the
y passed the camp for stragglers and captureddeserters; the camp for paroled prisoners; the evil-smellingconvalescent camp, which, still under Surgeon General Hammond'sDepartment, had not yet been inspected by the Sanitary Commission.

  An officer, riding their way, talked with them about conditions inthis camp, where, he said, the convalescents slept on the bareground, rain or shine; where there were but three surgeons for thethousands suffering from intestinal and throat and lung troubles,destitute, squalid, unwarmed by fires, unwashed, wretched, forsakenby the government that called them to its standard.

  It was the first of that sort of thing that Ailsa and Letty hadseen.

  After the battles in the West--particularly after the fall of FortDonnelson--terrible rumours were current in the Army of the Potomacand in the hospitals concerning the plight of the wounded--of newregiments that had been sent into action with not a single medicalofficer, or, for that matter, an ounce of medicine, or of lint inits chests.

  They were grisly rumours. In the neat wards of the Farm Hospital,with its freshly swept and sprinkled floors, its cots in rows, itsdetailed soldier nurses and the two nurses from Sainte Ursula'sSisterhood, its sick-diet department, its medical stores, its twoexcellent surgeons, these rumours found little credence.

  And now, here in the vicinity, Ailsa's delicate nostrils shrankfrom the stench arising from the "Four Camps"; and she saw theemaciated forms lining the hillside, and she heard the horrible andcontinuous coughing.

  "Do you know," she said to Letty the next morning, "I am going towrite to Miss Dix and inform her of conditions in that camp."

  And she did so, perfectly conscious that she was probably earningthe dislike of the entire medical department. But hundreds ofletters like hers had already been sent to Washington, and alreadythe Sanitary Commission was preparing to take hold; so, when atlength one morning an acknowledgment of her letter was received, nonotice was taken of her offer to volunteer for service in thatloathsome camp, but the same mail brought orders and credentialsand transportation vouchers for herself and Letty.

  Letty was still asleep, but Ailsa went up and waked her when thehour for her tour of duty approached.

  "What do you think!" she said excitedly. "We are to pack up ourvalises and go aboard the _Mary Lane_ to-morrow. She sails withhospital stores. _What_ do you think of that?"

  "Where are we going?" asked Letty, bewildered.

  "You poor, sleepy little thing," said Ailsa, sitting down on thebed's shaky edge, "I'm sure I don't know where we're going, dear.Two Protestant nurses are coming here to superintend the removal ofour sick boys--and Dr. West says they are old and ugly, and thatMiss Dix won't have any more nurses who are not over thirty and whoare not _most_ unattractive to look at."

  "I wonder what Miss Dix would do if she saw us," said Lettynaively, and sat up in bed; rubbing her velvety eyes with the backsof her hands. Then she yawned, looked inquiringly at Ailsa,smiled, and swung her slender body out of bed.

  While she was doing her hair Ailsa heard her singing to herself.She was very happy; another letter from Dr. Benton had arrived.

  Celia, who had gone to Washington three days before, to see Mr.Stanton, returned that evening with her passes and order fortransportation; and to Ailsa's astonishment and delight she foundthat the designated boat was the _Mary Lane_.

  But Celia was almost too nervous and too tired to talk over theprospects.

  "My dear," she said wearily, "that drive from the Chain Bridge toAlexandria has mos'ly killed me. I vow and declare there was neverone moment when one wheel was not in a mud hole. All my bonesache, Honey-bud, and I'm cross with talking to so many Yankees,and--do you believe me !--that ve'y horrid Stanton creature gaveorders that I was to take the oath!"

  "The--oath?" asked Ailsa, amazed.

  "Certainly. And I took it," she added fiercely, "becose of myhusband! If it had not been fo' Curt I'd have told Mr. Stantonwhat I thought of his old oath!"

  "What kind of an oath was it, Celia?"

  Celia repeated it haughtily:

  "'I do solemnly swear, in the presence of Almighty God, tofaithfully support the Constitution of the United States, and ofthe State of New York. So he'p me God.'"

  "It is the oath of fealty," said Ailsa in a hushed voice.

  "It was not necessa'y," said Celia coldly. "My husband issufficient to keep me--harmless. . . . But I know what I feel inmy heart, Honey-bud; and so does eve'y Southern woman--God help usall. . . . Is that little Miss Lynden going with us?"

  "Letty? Yes, of course."

  Celia began to undress. "She's a ve'y sweet little minx. . . .She is--odd, somehow. . . . So young--such a he'pless, cute littlething. . . Ailsa, in that child's eyes--or in her featuressomewhere, somehow, I see--I feel a--a sadness, somehow--like thegravity of expe'ience, the _something_ that wisdom brings to theve'y young too early. It is odd, isn't it."

  "Letty is a strange, gentle little thing. I've often wondered----"

  "What, Honey-bee?"

  "I--don't know," said Ailsa vaguely. "It is not natural that ahappy woman should be so solemnly affectionate to another. I'veoften thought that she must, sometime or other, have known deepunhappiness."

  When Celia was ready to retire, Ailsa bade her good-night andwandered away down the stairs, Letty was still on duty; she glancedinto the sick-diet kitchen as she passed and saw the girl bendingover a stew-pan.

  She did not disturb her. With evening a soft melancholy had begunto settle over Ailsa. It came in the evening, now, often--asensation not entirely sad, not unwelcome, soothing her, composingher mind for serious thought, for the sweet sadness of memory.

  Always she walked, now, companioned by memories of Berkley.Wherever she moved--in the quiet of the sick wards, in the silenceof the moonlight, seated by smeared windows watching the beatingrain, in the dead house, on duty in the kitchen contriving broths,or stretched among her pillows, always the memories came in troopsto bear her company.

  They were with her now as she paced the veranda to and fro, to andfro.

  She heard Letty singing happily over her stew-pan in the kitchen;the stir and breathing of the vast army was audible all around herin the darkness. Presently she looked at her watch in themoonlight, returned it to her breast.

  "I'm ready, dear," she said, going to the kitchen door.

  And another night on duty was begun--the last she ever was to spendunder the quiet roof of the Farm Hospital.

  That night she sat beside the bed of a middle-aged man, a corporalin a Minnesota regiment whose eyes had been shot out on picket.Otherwise he was convalescent from dysentery. But Ailsa had seenthe convalescent camp, and she would not let him go yet.

  So she read to him in a low, soothing voice, glancing from time totime at the bandaged face. And, when she saw he was asleep, shesat silent, hands nervously clasped above the Bible on her knee.Then her lids closed for an instant as she recited a prayer for theman she loved, wherever he might be that moon-lit night.

  A zouave, terribly wounded on Roanoke Island, began to fret; sherose and walked swiftly to him, and the big sunken eyes opened andhe said, humbly:

  "I am sorry to inconvenience you, Mrs. Paige. I'll try to keepquiet."

  "You foolish fellow, you don't inconvenience me. What can I do foryou?"

  His gaze was wistful, but he said nothing, and she bent downtenderly, repeating her question.

  A slight flush gathered under his gaunt cheek bones. "I guess I'mjust contrary," he muttered. "Don't bother about me, ma'am."

  "You are thinking of your wife; talk to me about her, Neil."

  It was what he wanted; he could endure the bandages. So, her coolsmooth hand resting lightly over his, where it lay on the sheets,she listened to the home-sick man until it was time to give anothersufferer his swallow of lemonade.

  Later she put on a gingham overgown, sprinkled it and her handswith camphor, and went into the outer wards where the isolatedpatients lay--where hospital gangrene and erysipelas were thehorrors.
And, farther on, she entered the outlying wing devoted totyphus. In spite of the open windows the atmosphere was heavy;everywhere the air seemed weighted with the odour of decay.

  As always, in spite of herself, she hesitated at the door. But thesteward on duty rose; and she took his candle and entered the placeof death.

  Toward morning a Rhode Island artilleryman, dying in great pain,relapsed into coma. Waiting beside him, she wrote to his parents,enclosing the little keepsakes he had designated when conscious,while his life flickered with the flickering candle. Her letterand his life ended together; dawn made the candle-light ghastly; afew moments later the rumble of the dead waggon sounded in thecourt below. The driver came early because there was a good dealof freight for his waggon that day. A few moments afterward thedetail arrived with the stretchers, and Ailsa stood up, drew asidethe screen, and went down into the gray obscurity of the court-yard.

  Grave-diggers were at work on a near hillside; she could hear theclink clink of spade and pick; reveille was sounding from hill tohill; the muffled stirring became a dull, sustained clatter, neverceasing around her for one instant.

  A laundress was boiling clothing over a fire near by; Ailsa slippedoff her gingham overdress, unbound the white turban, and tossedthem on the grass near the fire. Then, rolling back her sleeves,she plunged her arms into a basin of hot water in which a littlepowdered camphor was floating.

  While busy with her ablutions the two new nurses arrived, seated ona battery limber; and, hastily drying her hands, she went to themand welcomed them, gave them tea and breakfast in Dr. West'soffice, and left them there while she went away to awake Celia andLetty, pack her valise for the voyage before her, and write toBerkley.

  But it was not until she saw the sun low in the west from the deckof the _Mary Lane_, that she at last found a moment to write.

  The place, the hour, her loneliness, moved depths in her that shehad never sounded--moved her to a recklessness never dreamed of.It was an effort for her to restrain the passionate confessionstrembling on her pen's tip; her lips whitened with the crystruggling for utterance.

  "Dear, never before did I so completely know myself, never soabsolutely trust myself to the imperious, almost ungovernable tidewhich has taken my destiny from the quiet harbour where it lay, andwhich is driving it headlong toward yours.

  "You have left me alone, to wonder and to wonder. And whileisolated, I stand trying to comprehend why it was that your wordsseparated our destinies while your arms around me made them one. Iam perfectly aware that the surge of life has caught me up, tossedme to its crest, and is driving me blindly out across the wastespaces of the world toward you--wherever you may be--whatever bethe cost. I will not live without you.

  "I am not yet quite sure what has so utterly changed me--what hasso completely changed within me. But I am changed. Perhaps dailyfamiliarity with death and pain and wretchedness, hourly contactwith the paramount mystery of all, has broadened me, or benumbedme. I don't know. All I seem to see clearly--to clearlyunderstand--is the dreadful brevity of life, the awful chancesagainst living, the miracle of love in such a maelstrom, theinsanity of one who dare not confess it, live for it, love to theuttermost with heart, soul, and body, while life endures,

  "All my instincts, all principles inherent or inculcated; allknowledge spiritual and intellectual, acquired; all precepts,maxims, proverbs, axioms incorporated and lately a part of me, seemtrivial, empty, meaningless in sound and in form compared to theplain truths of Death. For never until now did I understand thatwe walk always arm in arm with Death, that he squires us at everystep, coolly joggles our elbow, touches our shoulder now and then,wakes us at dawn, puts out our night-light, and smooths the sheetswe sleep under.

  "I had thought of Death as something hiding very, very far away.Yet I had already seen him enter my own house. But now Iunderstand how close he always is; and, somehow, it haschanged--hardened, maybe--much that was vague and unformed in mycharacter. And, maybe, the knowledge is distorting it; I don'tknow. All I know is that, before life ends, if there is a chanceof fulfilment, I will take it. And fulfilment means you--my lovefor you, the giving of it, of myself, of all I am, all I desire,all I care for, all I believe, into your keeping--into yourembrace. That, for me, is fulfilment of life.

  "Even in your arms you tell me that there is to be no fulfilment.I have acquiesced, wondering, bewildered, confused. But, dear, youcan never tell me so again--if we live--if I live to look into youreyes again--never, never. For I shall not believe it, nor shall Ilet you believe it, if only we can win through this deathly battlenightmare which is rising between us--if ever we can find eachother again, touch each other through this red, unreal glare of war.

  "Oh, Philip--Philip--only to have your arms around me! Only totouch you! You shall not tell me then that our destinies do notmingle. They shall mingle like two wines; they shall becomeutterly confused in one another; I was meant for that; I will notdie, isolated by you, unknown to you, not belonging to you! I willnot die alone this way in the world, with no deeper memory to takeinto the unknown than that you said you loved me.

  "God alone knows what change misery and sorrow and love and deathhave accomplished in me; never have I stood so alone upon thisearth; never have I cared so for life, never have I so desired tobe a deathless part of yours.

  "If you love me you will make me part of yours--somehow, some way.And, Philip, if there is no way, yet there is always one way if weboth live. And I shall not complain--only, I cannot die--let lifego out--so that you could ever forget that my life had been part ofyours.

  "Is it dreadful of me to think this? But the mighty domination ofDeath has dwarfed everything around me, dear; shrivelled the littleman-made formulas and laws; the living mind and body seem morevital than the by-laws made to govern them. . . . God knows whatI'm writing, but you have gone into battle leaving life unfulfilledfor us both, and I assented--and my heart and soul are crying outto you, unreconciled--crying out my need of you across thesmoke. . . .

  "There is a battery at Cock-pit Point, firing, and the smoke of theguns drifts across the low-hanging sun. It must be only a salute,for our fleet of transports moves on, torrents of black smokepouring out of every tall funnel, paddle-wheels churning steadily.

  "When the fleet passed Mount Vernon the bells tolled aboard everyboat; and we could see the green trees and a glimmer of white onshore, and the flag flying.

  "What sadness! A people divided who both honour the sacredness ofthis spot made holy by a just man's grave--gathering to meet inbattle--brother against brother.

  "But Fate shall not longer array you and me against each other! Iwill not have it so! Neither my heart nor my soul could endure thecruelty of it, nor my reason its wickedness and insanity. From thefirst instant I met your eyes, Philip, somehow, within me, I knew Ibelonged to you. I do more hopelessly to-day than ever--and witheach day, each hour, more and more until I die. You will not letme go to my end unclaimed, will you?--a poor ghost all alone, lostin the darkness somewhere among the stars--lacking that tie betweenyou and it which even death does not know how to sever!

  "I leave all to you, loving you, wishing what you wish, contentwith what you give--and take--so that you do give and take and keepand hold for life.

  "It is very dusky; the lights, red and white, glimmer on everytransport. We feel the sea-swell a little. Celia left us, goingashore at Acquia Creek. She takes the cars to Richmond and then toPaigecourt. Letty sits beside me on deck. There were two cases offever aboard and we went down into a dreadfully ill-smelling cabinto do what we could. Now we are here on deck again. Some officersare talking very gaily with Letty. I am ending my letter toyou--wherever you are, my darling, under these big, staring starsthat look down at me out of space. I don't want my ghost to beblown about up there--unless it belongs to you. That is the onlyfear of death I ever have or ever had--that I might die before youhad all of me there is to give."