by Thomas Dixon
CHAPTER IV
THE BATTLE OF LOVE
Elsie carried Ben Cameron's pardon to the anxious mother and sister withher mind in a tumult. The name on these fateful papers fascinated her. Sheread it again and again with a curious personal joy that she had saved alife!
She had entered on her work among the hospitals a bitter partisan of herfather's school, with the simple idea that all Southerners were savagebrutes. Yet as she had seen the wounded boys from the South among the menin blue, more and more she had forgotten the difference between them. Theywere so young, these slender, dark-haired ones from Dixie--so pitifullyyoung! Some of them were only fifteen, and hundreds not over sixteen. Alad of fourteen she had kissed one day in sheer agony of pity for hisloneliness.
The part her father was playing in the drama on which Ben Cameron's lifehad hung puzzled her. Was his the mysterious arm back of Stanton? Echoesof the fierce struggle with the President had floated through thehalf-open door.
She had implicit faith in her father's patriotism and pride in his giantintellect. She knew that he was a king among men by divine right ofinherent power. His sensitive spirit, brooding over a pitiful lameness,had hidden from the world behind a frowning brow like a wounded animal.Yet her hand in hours of love, when no eye save God's could see, had ledhis great soul out of its dark lair. She loved him with broodingtenderness, knowing that she had gotten closer to his inner life than anyother human being--closer than her own mother, who had died while she wasa babe. Her aunt, with whom she and Phil now lived, had told her themother's life was not a happy one. Their natures had not proved congenial,and her gentle Quaker spirit had died of grief in the quiet home insouthern Pennsylvania.
Yet there were times when he was a stranger even to her. Some secret, darkand cold, stood between them. Once she had tenderly asked him what itmeant. He merely pressed her hand, smiled wearily, and said:
"Nothing, my dear, only the Blue Devils after me again."
He had always lived in Washington in a little house with black shutters,near the Capitol, while the children had lived with his sister, near theWhite House, where they had grown from babyhood.
A curious fact about this place on the Capitol hill was that hishousekeeper, Lydia Brown, was a mulatto, a woman of extraordinary animalbeauty and the fiery temper of a leopardess. Elsie had ventured there onceand got such a welcome she would never return. All sorts of gossip couldbe heard in Washington about this woman, her jewels, her dresses, herairs, her assumption of the dignity of the presiding genius of Nationallegislation and her domination of the old Commoner and his life. Itgradually crept into the newspapers and magazines, but he never oncecondescended to notice it.
Elsie begged her father to close this house and live with them.
His reply was short and emphatic:
"Impossible, my child. This club foot must live next door to the Capitol.My house is simply an executive office at which I sleep. Half the businessof the Nation is transacted there. Don't mention this subject again."
Elsie choked back a sob at the cold menace in the tones of this command,and never repeated her request. It was the only wish he had ever deniedher, and, somehow, her heart would come back to it with persistence andbrood and wonder over his motive.
The nearer she drew, this morning, to the hospital door, the closer thewounded boy's life and loved ones seemed to hers. She thought with anguishof the storm about to break between her father and the President--the onedemanding the desolation of their land, wasted, harried, and unarmed!--thePresident firm in his policy of mercy, generosity, and healing.
Her father would not mince words. His scorpion tongue, set on fires ofhell, might start a conflagration that would light the Nation with itsglare. Would not his name be a terror for every man and woman born underSouthern skies? The sickening feeling stole over her that he was wrong,and his policy cruel and unjust.
She had never before admired the President. It was fashionable to speakwith contempt of him in Washington. He had little following in Congress.Nine tenths of the politicians hated or feared him, and she knew herfather had been the soul of a conspiracy at the Capitol to prevent hissecond nomination and create a dictatorship, under which to carry out aniron policy of reconstruction in the South. And now she found herselfheart and soul the champion of the President.
She was ashamed of her disloyalty, and felt a rush of impetuous angeragainst Ben and his people for thrusting themselves between her and herown. Yet how absurd to feel thus against the innocent victims of a greattragedy! She put the thought from her. Still she must part from them nowbefore the brewing storm burst. It would be best for her and best forthem. This pardon delivered would end their relations. She would send thepapers by a messenger and not see them again. And then she thought with athrob of girlish pride of the hour to come in the future when Ben's bigbrown eyes would be softened with a tear when he would learn that she hadsaved his life. They had concealed all from him as yet.
She was afraid to question too closely in her own heart the shadowy motivethat lay back of her joy. She read again with a lingering smile the name"Ben Cameron" on the paper with its big red Seal of Life. She had laughedat boys who had made love to her, dreaming a wider, nobler life of heroicservice. And she felt that she was fulfilling her ideal in the generoushand she had extended to these who were friendless. Were they not thechildren of her soul in that larger, finer world of which she had dreamedand sung? Why should she give them up now for brutal politics? Theirsorrow had been hers, their joy should be hers, too. She would take thepapers herself and then say good-bye.
She found the mother and sister beside the cot. Ben was sleeping withMargaret holding one of his hands. The mother was busy sewing for thewounded Confederate boys she had found scattered through the hospital.
At the sight of Elsie holding aloft the message of life she sprang to meether with a cry of joy.
She clasped the girl to her breast, unable to speak. At last she releasedher and said with a sob:
"My child, through good report and through evil report my love will enfoldyou!"
Elsie stammered, looked away, and tried to hide her emotion. Margaret hadknelt and bowed her head on Ben's cot. She rose at length, threw her armsaround Elsie in a resistless impulse, kissed her and whispered:
"My sweet sister!"
Elsie's heart leaped at the words, as her eyes rested on the face of thesleeping soldier.
