Chapter XXXII: The End of It All 434 (6)

In one case a surgeon was shot unto death while holding an artery end. But while waiting for the death that he knew must come within the brief space of a few minutes, the gallant fellow held his forceps firmly and directed his assistant how to tie the blood vessel. Then he gave up the ghost, in the very act of thus saving a human life perhaps not worth a hundredth part of his own. The heroism of war does not lie altogether with those who make desperate charges or desperately receive them.

Arthur Brent was high in rank in that medical corps, the cool courage of whose members, if it could be adequately set forth, would constitute as heroic a story as any that has ever been related in illustration of daring and self-sacrifice, and he honoured his rank in his conduct. His duty lay sometimes in the field, whither he went to organise and direct the work of others, and sometimes in the laboratory, where no element of danger existed. In either case he did his duty with never a thought of self and never a question of the cost.

On this occasion he stood upon the exposed mound of the magazine, watching Kilgariff’s splendid work with the guns, until at last the bombardment ceased as suddenly and as meaninglessly as it had begun; for that was the way with bombardments on those lines.

When at last the fire sank to its ordinary dead level of ceaseless sharp-shooting, with only now and then a cannon shot to punctuate the irregular rattle of the rifles, Kilgariff gave the order, “Cease firing,” and the clamorous mortars were stilled. Then he turned to the officers who had come to him for instruction, and said:—

“Some of my men have been quick to learn and are now experts. If any of you gentlemen desire it, I will send some of the best of them to you now and then to help you instruct your cannoniers and your gunners. You will yourselves impress upon the magazine men the importance of not compressing the powder in measuring it. A very slight inattention at that point often makes a difference of twenty-five or fifty yards in the range, and so renders worthless and ineffective a shell which might otherwise do its work well. If you need the services of any of my men as tutors to your own, pray call upon me. Now good evening. I’m sorry I cannot invite you to sup with me, but I really haven’t so much as a hard-tack biscuit to offer you.”

When the officers had gone, Kilgariff and Brent seated themselves on top of the magazine mound and talked.

“First of all,” said Arthur Brent, “I want to hear about the things personal to yourself. You put them aside, in your letter, as of smaller consequence than the matters, whatever they were, which related to others. I do not so regard them. So tell me first of them.”

“Oh, those things have pretty well settled themselves,” answered Kilgariff, with a touch of disgust in his tone. “It was only that I very much wanted to decline this captain’s commission, under which I have been commanding sixty mortars and something like a battalion of men here. General Early fairly forced the rank upon me, after Captain Pollard lost his leg—”

“By the way,” interrupted Doctor Brent, “Pollard is at Wyanoke and convalescent. With his superb constitution and his lifelong wholesomeness of living, his recovery has been rapid. He very much wants to see you. He would like you to continue in command of his battery—or would have liked it if you had not been transferred to Petersburg. He is a major now, you know, promoted for gallantry and good service, and when he returns to duty (which will be within a day or two) he will have command of his battalion. Of course, your special qualification for the work you are doing here forbids you to go back to your battery. The chief of artillery would never permit that. But I’m interrupting. Tell me what you set out to say.”

“Well, it’s all simple enough. You know my reasons for wishing to be an enlisted man rather than a commissioned officer. When I wrote to you, I was acting as captain under General Early’s peremptory orders, but the commission he had asked the authorities at Richmond to send me had not yet come. I knew that if it should come while I was with Early, he would never let me decline it. He would have refused even to forward my declination through the regular channels. It was my hope to get myself ordered to Petersburg before the commission could come.

“In that case, I thought, I could decline it and take service in my own non-commissioned rank as sergeant-major and special drill-master for the mortar batteries. But the commission came, through Early, on the day before I left the valley, and when I reported here for duty, asking to have it cancelled, the chief of artillery peremptorily refused. He took me to General Lee’s headquarters and there explained the situation. General Lee settled the matter by saying that I could render much better service with a commission than without one, and that he ‘desired’ me to act in the capacity to which I had been commissioned. I had no choice but to yield to his wish, of course, so I took command here as captain, and immediately all the fragments of batteries that had been disintegrated during the campaign, and especially those whose officers had been killed or captured, were turned over to me to be converted into mortar men.

“They number about two hundred and fifty men, some of whom are non-commissioned officers, ranking all the way from corporal to sergeant-major, so that it is impossible to handle the command effectively under a single company organisation. I made a report on the matter two days ago suggesting that the body be organised into a number of small, compact companies, and that some major of artillery already holding his commission be ordered to assume control of the whole. To-day came my reply—about two hours ago. It was to the effect that by recommendation of the chief of artillery, approved by General Lee, I had been appointed lieutenant-colonel, in command of all the mortars on this part of the line. I am instructed to organise this service with a view to effectiveness, and to report only through the chief of artillery, without the intervention of any colonel or brigadier or major-general. I cannot refuse to obey such orders, given in aid of effective service. I cannot even ask to be excused without offering an affront to my superiors and seeming, at least, to shirk that service in which they think I can make the best use of my capacities in behalf of our cause.

“So that matter has settled itself. I shall have two stars sewed upon my collar to-night, and to-morrow morning I shall begin the work of reorganising the mortar service. I shall encounter very black looks in the countenances of some of the courteous captains whom you saw here half an hour ago. They are men who care for military rank, as I do not, and they will not be pleased to find themselves overslaughed by my promotion. They will never believe that I wish, even more heartily than they can, that some one of them had been set to do this duty, and that I might have returned to the ranks. But a soldier must take what comes. I must accept their black looks, and their jealousies, and perhaps even the lasting enmity of some of them, precisely as I accept the fact of the shells flung at me by the enemy.”

At that moment a sergeant approached, and, saluting, said:—

“Captain Kilgariff”—for Kilgariff had not yet announced his promotion even to his men—“one of the men is hurt by a fragment of the shell that burst over us half a minute ago. He seems badly wounded.”

Instantly Kilgariff and Arthur Brent hurried to the pit where the wounded man lay, and Doctor Brent dressed his wound, which was serious. At his suggestion, Kilgariff ordered two of the men to carry the stricken one to the rear through the covered way, and deliver him to the surgeons of the nearest field-hospital.

Just as the party started, a huge fifteen-inch mortar shell descended from a great height, struck the apex of the earth mound that covered the magazine, where ten minutes before the two friends had been sitting in converse, and there instantly exploded with great violence.

Kilgariff hastened to inspect. He found the magazine intact, so far, at least, as its contents were concerned. There were more than a thousand pounds of Dupont rifle powder there, secured in wooden boxes called “monkeys,” and there were two thousand mortar shells there also, each weighing twenty-four pounds, each terribly destructive, potentially at least, and each loaded with a heavy charge of gunpowder. Fortunately the explosion of the gigantic shell had not ignited the magazine. Had it done so, neither a man nor a gun nor any trace of either would have remained in all that circle of mortar pits, to tell the tale of their occupancy.

But practically all of the earth that had constituted the mound had been blown completely away, and some of the timbers that had supported it had been crushed till they had broken and fallen in. The man who had been in charge of the magazine was found crushed to a pulp by the falling of the timbers.

When Kilgariff had fully explored, and discovered the extent of the disaster, he swore. Pointing to the mangled body of the man who had been caught in the ruin, he said to Arthur Brent:—

“There was never a better man than Johnny Garrett. He had a wife and four children up in Fauquier County. The wife is a widow now, and the children are orphans, and Johnny Garrett is a shapeless mass of inert human flesh, all because of the incapacity of an engineer, damn him! I know the fellow—” But before continuing, Kilgariff turned to a sergeant and said:—

“Go at once to General Gracie’s headquarters, and say that Lieutenant-colonel Kilgariff—be sure to say _Lieutenant-colonel Kilgariff_—commanding the mortars, asks the instant attendance of a capable engineer and at least twenty-five sappers and miners to repair damages and guard against an imminent danger at Fort Lamkin. If General Gracie cannot furnish the assistance needed, go to General Bushrod Johnson’s headquarters and prefer a like request. Take a look first, and you’ll understand how imperative it is to get help at once. There lie a thousand pounds of rifle powder exposed to every spark that a shell may fling into it; and there are two thousand loaded shells to explode. Go quickly, and don’t return without the assistance required.”

Ten minutes later came the sappers and miners, armed with picks, shovels, axes, and the other tools of their trade. At their head was the engineer officer, Captain Harbach, who had constructed the magazine in the first place.

Kilgariff was a cool, self-possessed person, who very rarely lost his temper in any obvious fashion. But when he saw Harbach in command, he had difficulty in controlling himself. Pointing to the ruined magazine, he said:—

“See one result of your carelessness and gross ignorance.”

Then, pointing to the crushed and mangled body of Johnny Garrett, he added:—

“Look upon another result of your criminality in seeking a commission in the engineers when you perfectly knew you had no adequate knowledge of engineering. When you were constructing that magazine, I warned you that your single tier of timbers under the earth was insufficient. I reminded you of the importance of adequately protecting the vast amount of powder that must be stored there. I begged you to use longer timbers for the sake of greater elasticity, and to use three tiers of them instead of one. Your rank at that time was older than my own, and I could only give you advice, which you disregarded. You now have before you abundant evidence of your own criminal ignorance, your own criminal neglect of plain duty, your own criminal folly. For these I shall prefer charges against you before this night ends, and I shall press those charges with vigour enough to offset even the personal and political influence that secured a commission for an incapable like you.”

Kilgariff was in a towering rage, and with the mangled body of Johnny Garrett lying there before him for his text, he found it impossible to restrain his speech; but to the very end, that speech was so far under control that its tones, at least, gave no indication of the excitement that inspired it. If the man speaking had been delivering a university lecture, his voice and manner could scarcely have been under better control.

When he paused, Harbach broke in:—

“Be careful of your words, Captain Kilgariff—”

“Lieutenant-colonel Kilgariff, if you please; that is my present rank, and I’ll trouble you to recognise it.”

“Oh, well, Lieutenant-colonel Kilgariff, if that pleases you better. Be careful of your words. You have already spoken some for which I shall hold you responsible.”

“Quite right,” answered Kilgariff. “I hold myself responsible, and I’ll answer for my words in any way and at any time and to any extent that you may desire. But meanwhile, and as your superior officer, I now order you to set to work to render that magazine safe. As your superior officer, I shall assume authority to direct your work and to insist that it shall be done as I command. Let your men shovel away all that remains of the earth mound and send your axe-men into the timber there to cut seventy or eighty sticks, each twenty-three feet long and eight inches in diameter.”

The captain showed signs of standing on his dignity by refusing, but Kilgariff promptly brought him to terms by saying:—

“Whenever you want to call me to account, I shall respond—I’ll do it in an hour hence, if you choose. But for the sake of the lives of some hundreds of men, I am going to have this magazine securely constructed within the briefest possible time. After that, I shall be very much at your service. You may either set your men at work in the way I have suggested, or you may return to your quarters, in which case I shall assume command of your men and do the work myself. If you elect to return to your quarters, I pledge you my honour as an officer that I shall not make your desertion of duty at a critical moment the subject of an additional charge in the court-martial proceedings that I shall surely institute against you to-morrow morning.”

Thus permitted, Captain Harbach retired through the covered way, and Owen Kilgariff assumed command of the men he had left behind him.

Within two hours, the magazine was reconstructed, and so strongly that no danger remained of the kind that had threatened the lives of Owen Kilgariff’s men.

When all was done, Kilgariff turned again to Arthur Brent and said:—

“Now let us resume our conversation.”

“But what about this quarrel with Captain Harbach? He will surely challenge you.”

“Of course, and I shall accept. Never mind that. He may possibly shoot me through the head or heart or lungs. The chance of that renders it only the more imperative that you and I shall talk out our talk. I have much to say to you that must be said before morning. Besides, I must prepare my charges against Captain Harbach. It is a duty that I owe to the service to expose the arrogant incapacity of such men as he. Such incapacity imperils the lives of better men, by scores and hundreds, every day. If I can do anything to purge the service of such incapables—men whose fathers’ or friends’ influence has secured commissions for them to assume duties which they are utterly incapable of discharging properly or even with tolerable safety to the lives of other men—it will be a greatly good achievement. Let us talk now of something else.”

Then he told Arthur about the papers that the man who called himself Campbell had intrusted to his keeping.

“The matter sorely embarrasses me,” he explained. “I don’t know what I ought to do. Of course I am in no way bound by that fellow’s half-spoken, half-suggested injunction not to give the papers to Evelyn till she attains the age of twenty-one. I completely disregard that. But there are other things to be thought of. My command here on the lines is losing from twenty to thirty per cent of its personnel each month. Nothing is more likely than that I shall turn up among the ‘killed in action’ some morning. If I keep the papers with me, they are liable to fall into other and perhaps unfriendly hands at any moment. As I have not the remotest notion of what is recorded in them, of course I cannot even conjecture how much of harm that might work to Evelyn. You perfectly understand that her welfare, her comfort, her feelings, constitute the controlling consideration with me.”

“Oh, yes, I understand that,” said Arthur.

“Don’t jest, if you please,” broke in Kilgariff, with a note of offence in his voice.

“My dear fellow,” answered Arthur, with profound seriousness, “nothing could be farther from my thought than jesting on a subject so serious. I beg you to believe—”

“I do. I believe you implicitly. But somehow this explosion, and poor Johnny Garrett’s needless death, and my quarrel with that reckless incapable, Harbach, have set my nerves on edge, so that I am querulous. Forgive me, and let me go on. As to these papers, I want to do that which is best for Evelyn; but I don’t know what is best, and I can’t find out by questioning my own mind. You see, I not only do not know what is in the papers, but I do not even know what circumstances gave them birth, or what purpose of good or evil lies behind them, or what distressing revelations they may make for her affliction. The cold-blooded gambler, swindler, adventurer, cheat, who gave the papers to me is—or was, for I don’t know whether he is now dead or alive—capable of any atrocity. He admitted to me that he had cruelly persecuted the girl, his daughter. It would not be inconsistent with his character, I think, for him to send her from his deathbed a bundle of papers that should needlessly afflict and torture her. He cherished quite enough of enmity to me, I think, to make him happy in the conviction that he had made me his unwilling and unwitting agent in inflicting such wounds upon her spirit.

“Thus I dare not give her the papers, nor dare I withhold them, lest thereby I do her a wrong. Counsel me, my friend. Tell me what I should do!”

“Consult Dorothy,” answered Arthur. “Her judgment in such a case will be immeasurably wiser than yours or mine, or both combined.”

“Thank you. That is the best solution. I wonder I didn’t think of it before. I will act upon it at once. I’ll send the papers to Dorothy by your hand, and I’ll ask you also to bear her a letter in which I shall beg for her judgment. That’s the end of one of my perplexities, for the time being at least. Now let us talk of another thing that concerns me very deeply. I am a pretty rich man, as you know. I own some real estate in New York City. That will probably be confiscated when this war comes to an end, as you and I clearly see that it must do very soon. I own a good many stocks and bonds and other securities, which cannot be so easily confiscated, inasmuch as they are in possession of my bankers, who are like drums for tightness, and are besides my very good friends. In addition to these things, the bulk of my fortune is invested in Europe, where it cannot be confiscated at all. The securities are held by the Liverpool branch of Frazer, Trenholm, and Company, of Charleston, for my account, so that they are perfectly safe.

“Now the only relatives I have in the world, so far as I know, are my brother and his family. I have every reason for desiring that none of them shall ever get a single cent from my estate. So much on the negative side. Affirmatively, I very earnestly desire that every dollar I have in the world shall go at my death to the one woman I ever loved—Evelyn Byrd.

“It may seem to you a simple and easy thing to arrange that, but it is not so. Any will that I might make cutting off my relatives from the inheritance of my property would be obstinately contested in the courts.”

“But upon what grounds?”

“Oh, the lawyers can be trusted to find reasons ‘as plenty as blackberries.’ For one thing, they could insist that I was a dead man long before the date of my will.”

“How do you mean?”

“Why, when I escaped from Sing Sing, there were two other men with me. As we swam out into the Hudson, the guards opened a vigorous fire upon us. One of my companions was killed outright, his face being badly mutilated by the bullets. The other was wounded and recaptured. He positively identified the dead man’s body as mine. It was buried in my name, and my death was officially recorded as a fact. So, you see, I am officially a dead man, if ever my relatives have occasion to prove me so. But apart from that, my estate, when I die, will be a sufficiently large carcass to induce a great gathering of the buzzards about it. With half a million dollars or more to fight over, the lawyers may be trusted to find ample grounds for fighting.”

“It seems a difficult problem to solve,” said Arthur, meditatively. “I don’t see how you can manage it.”

“Such matters are easy enough when one has friends, as I have, who may be trusted implicitly. I have thought this matter out, and I think I know how to handle the situation.”

“Tell me your plan, if you wish.”

“Of course I wish. My first thought was to give everything I have in the world to Evelyn now, giving her deeds for the real estate and absolute bills of sale for the securities. But of course I could not do that. I could never gain her consent to such an arrangement without first winning her love and making her my affianced bride.”

“Do you think that would be impossible?”

“I do not know—perhaps so. At any rate, it is out of the question.”

“I confess I do not see why.”

“I am a convicted criminal, you know—a fugitive from justice.”

“No. You are officially dead. The courts of New York will not hold a dead man to be a fugitive from justice. And morally you are nothing of the kind. It was not justice, but infamous injustice, that condemned you.”

“However that may be, I can never ask Evelyn Byrd to be my wife, to share the life of a man who might even possibly be sent back to Sing Sing. I can never ask her to make of her children the sons and daughters of a convicted criminal. I will not do that. So I have thought out another plan. My second thought was to turn over all I have to you in trust for Evelyn. When I am dead, she need not refuse the gift. But there again is a difficulty. When this war ends in the complete conquest of the South, as it soon must, political passion at the North is well-nigh certain to find expression in acts of wholesale confiscation, directed against men of wealth at the South, and men who have served as officers in our army. They may, indeed, include all who have served at all, even as privates. At any rate, you are an officer of high rank, and between you and Dorothy you are one of the greatest plantation owners in Virginia. You are pretty sure to be included in whatever is done in this way.

“It will not do, therefore, to make you my trustee for Evelyn. I must have some non-combatant to serve in that capacity, and, with your permission, I am going to ask Dorothy to accept the duty.”

“You have my permission, certainly. But I see another danger. Suppose anything should happen to Dorothy?—God forbid it! Suppose she should die?”

“I have thought of all that,” answered Kilgariff, “and I think I see a way out. I shall ask Dorothy to select some friend, some woman whom she can absolutely trust, to serve with her as a joint trustee, giving full power to the survivor to carry out the trust in case of the death of either of the two. I haven’t a doubt she knows such a woman.”

“She does—two of them. There is Edmonia Bannister, one of God’s elect in character, and there is Mrs. Baillie Pegram—she who was Agatha Ronald. Either of them would serve the purpose perfectly.”

“I’ll get Dorothy to ask both of them,” responded Kilgariff. “Then all possible contingencies will be fully met and provided for.

“Now for present concerns. If I can make a Confederate taper burn for an hour, I’ll write my letter to Dorothy, to accompany the papers, and to ask her to serve me in this matter of the trusteeship. I have a very capable young lawyer under my command here as a sergeant. Early in the morning I shall set him to work preparing the trust conveyances. He is a rapid worker, and will have the documents ready by nightfall. Then I’ll send them to Wyanoke by a courier. In the meanwhile I have Captain Harbach on my hands. I’m afraid I must ask you to act for me in that matter. While we have been talking, it has occurred to me that when I prefer my charges against Captain Harbach, he will be placed under arrest. In that position he would not be permitted to send me the hostile message he threatened to-night. It would be extremely unfair to him to place him in such a position. I want you to write to him, if you will, as my friend. Say to him that in view of his expressed desire to hold me responsible for words spoken to-night, and in order to give him opportunity to do so without embarrassment, I shall postpone for twenty-four hours, or for a longer time, if for any reason he cannot conveniently act within twenty-four hours, the preferring of my official charges against him. Ask him, please, to advise you of his wishes in the matter in order that I may comply with them.”

“You are a very cool hand, Kilgariff,” said Arthur, “and your courtesy to an enemy is extreme.”

“Oh, courtesy in such a case is a matter of course. Let me say to you, now, that when I meet Captain Harbach on the field, I shall fire high in the air. I have no desire to kill him or to inflict the smallest hurt upon him. I am merely giving him the opportunity he desires to kill me, by way of avenging himself upon me for the severe criticisms I have made upon his character, his conduct, and his assumption of functions that he is incapable of discharging with tolerable safety to other men. Let me make this matter plainer to your mind, Arthur. I do not at all believe in the duello. I think it barbarous in intent and usually ridiculous in its conduct. But I had the best of good reasons for saying what I did to Captain Harbach, and so I said it. What I said was exceedingly offensive to him, and the only way he knows of ‘vindicating’ himself is by challenging me to a duel. It would be a gross injustice on my part to refuse to meet him, and to do an injustice is to commit an immorality. So, of course, I shall meet him. As I have no desire to do him other harm than to get him removed from a position which he is incapable of filling with safety to others and benefit to the service, I shall not think of shooting at him. But I shall give him the privilege he craves of shooting at me. I really don’t mind, you know, under the circumstances, except that in any case I shall postpone his shooting at me till I can execute the documents relating to my property.”

“In view of your explanation,” answered Arthur, “I must decline to act as your friend in this matter.”

“But why?”

“Because I will have no part nor lot in a murder. I detest duelling, as you do; I regard it as a relic of feudalism which ought to give place to something better in our enlightened and law-governed time. But while it lasts, I am forced to consent to it, however unwillingly. I recognise the fact that the right of the individual to make private war on his own account is the only basis on which nations can logically or even sanely claim the right to make public war. Nations are only aggregations of individuals, and their rights are only the sum of the rights previously possessed by the individuals composing them. But while I feel in that way about duelling, I can have no part in a contest in which I know in advance that one of the contestants is going to shoot to kill, while the other is merely standing up to be shot at and does not himself intend to make war at all.”

“Very well,” answered Kilgariff. “I’ll get some one else to send the letter.”

He summoned an orderly and directed him to go to a neighbouring camp and ask an officer there to call upon Lieutenant-colonel Kilgariff, “concerning a purely personal matter, and not at all with reference to any matter of service.”

The officer, a fiery little fellow, responded at once to the summons, and he promptly wrote—spelling it very badly—the message which Kilgariff had asked Arthur to send.

Half an hour later, the messenger who had borne the note returned with it unopened. For explanation, he said:—

“Captain Harbach had his head blown off in the trenches just before daylight this morning.”

XVIII

EVELYN’S REVELATION

IT was during Arthur’s absence at Petersburg that Evelyn began talking with Dorothy about herself.

“It isn’t nice,” she said, as the two sat together in the porch one day, “for me to have reserves and secrets with you, Dorothy.”

“But why not? Every one is entitled to have reserves. Why should not you?”

“Oh, because—well, things are different with me. You are good to me—nobody was ever so good to me. I am living here, and loving you and letting you love me, and all the time you know nothing at all about me. It isn’t fair. I hate unfairness.”

“So do I,” answered Dorothy. “But this isn’t unfair. I never asked you to tell me anything about yourself.”

“That’s the worst of it. That’s what makes it so mean and ugly and unfair for me to go on in this way. Why should you be so good to me when you don’t know anything about me?”

“Why, because, although I do not know your history, _I know you_. If it is painful for you to tell me about yourself—”

“It wouldn’t be painful,” the girl answered, with an absent, meditative look in her eyes. But she added nothing to the sentence. She merely caressed Dorothy’s hand. After a little silence, she suddenly asked:—

“What’s a ‘parole,’ Dorothy?”

Dorothy explained, but the explanation did not seem to satisfy.

“What does it mean? How much does it include? How long does it last?”

Dorothy again explained. Then Evelyn said:—

“It was a parole I took. I don’t know what or how much it bound me not to tell. I wish I could make that out.”

“If you could tell me something about the circumstances,” answered the older woman, “perhaps I could help you to find out. But you mustn’t tell me anything unless you wish.”

“I should like to tell you everything. You see, they were trying to send me South, through the lines somehow. They said I was to be sent to some relatives—but I reckon that wasn’t true. Anyhow, they wanted to send me through the lines, and they had to get permission. So they took me to a military man of some sort, and he took my parole. I had to swear not to tell anything to the enemy, and after I had sworn that I wouldn’t, he looked very sternly at me and told me I mustn’t forget that I had taken an oath not to tell anything I knew.”

Dorothy answered without hesitation that the parole referred only to military matters, and not at all to things that related only to the girl herself and her life.

“But, Dorothy, I didn’t know anything about military affairs—how could I? So I reckon they couldn’t have meant that.”

“They could not know what information you might have, or what messages some one might send through you. You may be entirely sure, dear, that your oath meant nothing in the world beyond that. The military authorities at the North care nothing about your private affairs or how much you may talk of them. Still, you are not to tell anything that you have doubts about. You are not to wound your own conscience. I sometimes think our own consciences are all there is of Judgment Day. You are always to remember that Arthur and I are perfectly satisfied to take you for what you are, asking no questions as to the rest. We are vain enough to think ourselves capable of forming our own judgment concerning the character of a girl like you. We are not afraid of making any mistake about that.”

Evelyn did not reply. She sat still, continuing to caress Dorothy’s hand. She was thinking in some troubled fashion, and Dorothy was wise enough to let her go on thinking without interruption.

After a while the girl suddenly dropped the hand, arose, and went out upon the lawn. Her mare was grazing there, and Evelyn called the animal to her. Leaping upon the unsaddled and unbridled mare, she started off at a gallop. Presently she slipped off her low shoes, and in her stocking feet stood erect upon the galloping animal’s back. With low, almost muttered commands she directed the mare’s course, making her leap a fence twice, while her rider sometimes stood erect, sometimes knelt, and sometimes sat for a moment, only to rise again with as great apparent ease as if she had been occupying a chair.

Finally she brought her steed to a halt, leaped nimbly to the ground, and resumed her slippers. She walked rapidly back to the porch, and, with a look of positively painful earnestness in her face, demanded:—

“Does _that_ make a difference? Does it alter your opinion? Do you still believe in me?”

Her tone was so eager, so intense, that it seemed almost angry. Dorothy only answered:—

“It makes no difference.”

“You know what that means? You guess where I learned to do that?”

“Yes.”

“And still you do not cast me out? Still you do not command me to go away?”

“Not at all. Why should I?”

“But why not? Most women of your class and in your position would send me away.”

“I am perhaps not like most women of my class and condition. At any rate, as I told you a while ago, I _know you_, I trust you, I believe in you. _You are you._ What else matters? Let me tell you a little life-story. My mother was a musician, who performed in public. Everybody about here scorned her for that. But she was the superior of all of them. She was a woman of genius and strong character. She hated shams and conventionalities, and she was a good woman. When the war came, she set to work nursing the wounded. She was shot to death a little while ago, and the soldiers loved her so that they rolled a great boulder over her grave and carved a loving inscription upon it with their own hands. Many of them were killed in doing that; but whenever one fell, another took his place. Do you think, Evelyn, that I, her daughter, could ever scorn a good woman like you, merely because she was or had been an actor in a show? I tell you, Evelyn Byrd, I _know_ you, and that is quite enough for me.”

“Is it enough for Cousin Arthur?”

“Yes, assuredly.”

“And for—well, for others?”

“If you mean Kilgariff, yes. If you mean the conventional people, no. So you had better never say anything about it to them.”

At Dorothy’s mention of Kilgariff’s name, Evelyn started as if shocked. But quickly recovering herself, she said with passion in her tones:—

“You are the very best woman in the world, Dorothy. I shall not long have any secrets from you.”

The girl’s agitation was ungovernable. Emotionally she had passed through a greater crisis than she had ever known before, and her nerves were badly shaken. Without trying to utter the words that would not rise to her quivering lips, she took refuge in the laboratory, where she set to work with the impatience of one who must open a safety valve of some kind, or suffer collapse. Most women of her age, similarly agitated, would have gone to their chambers instead, and vented their feelings in paroxysms of weeping. Evelyn Byrd was not given to tears. Perhaps bitter experience had conquered that feminine tendency in her, though very certainly it had not robbed her of her intense femininity in any other way.

When Dorothy joined her in the laboratory an hour later, the girl was engaged in an operation so delicate that the tremor of a finger, the jarring of a sharply closed door, or even a sudden breath of air would have ruined the work.

“Step lightly, please,” was all that she said. Dorothy saw that the girl had completely mastered herself.

And Dorothy admired and rejoiced.

XIX

DOROTHY’S DECISION

KILGARIFF had not long to wait for Dorothy’s answer, nor was the reply an uncertain one. It was not Dorothy’s habit to be uncertain of her own mind, especially where any question of right and wrong was involved. She never hesitated to do or advise the right as she saw it, and she never on any account juggled with the truth or avoided it.

So far as the trusteeship was concerned, she accepted the appointment for herself and also for Edmonia Bannister and Agatha Pegram, both of whom were within an hour’s ride of Wyanoke, as Agatha was staying for a time at Edmonia’s home, Branton. Dorothy had gone to them at once on receipt of Kilgariff’s letter, and both had consented to accept the trust.

That matter out of the way, Dorothy took up the other with that directness of mind which made her always clear-sighted and well-nigh unerring in judgment, at least where questions of conduct were concerned.

I am rather surprised, Kilgariff [she wrote], and not quite pleased with you. Can you not see that you have no more right to let me read Evelyn’s papers than to read them yourself? They are hers to do with as she pleases, and neither you nor I may so much as read a line of them without her voluntary consent.

Neither, I think, have you any right to withhold them from her. They are her property, and you must give them to her, as you would her purse, had it come into your possession. The fact that these papers may hurt her feelings in the reading has no bearing whatever on the case. It is not your function to protect her against unpleasantness by withholding from her anything to which she has a right, whether it be property or information or anything else. You are not her father, or her brother, or her husband, or even a man affianced to her—this last mainly by your own fault, I think. It is just like a man to think that he has a right to wrong a woman by way of protecting her and sparing her feelings.

Let me tell you that Evelyn Byrd stands in need of no such protection. Little as I know of her life-experiences, that little is far more than you know. She has suffered; she has known wrong and oppression; she has had to work out for herself even the fundamental principles of morality in conduct. Her experience has been such that it has made her wonderfully strong, especially in the matter of endurance. She is tender, loving, sensitive—yes, exquisitely sensitive—but she has a self-control which amounts to stoicism—to positive heroism, I should say, if that word were not a badly overworked one.

Nevertheless, I have some fear that these papers may contain things that it will be very painful for her to read, and I strongly sympathise with your desire to spare her. I condemn only the method you have wished to adopt. I must not examine the papers. I have no right, and you can give me no right, to do that. Still less must I think of deciding whether they are to be given to her or withheld. That is a thing that decides itself. They are absolutely hers. You must yourself place them in her hands. In doing so, you can make whatever explanation or suggestions you please, and she can act upon your suggestions or disregard them, as shall seem best to her.

To do this thing properly, you must come to Wyanoke. There seems to be no crisis impending at Petersburg just now, and you can easily get leave for two or three days, particularly as the distance between Wyanoke and Petersburg is so small. In case of need, you can return to your post quickly. A good horse would make the journey in a very brief time. If pressed, he could cover it in two hours, or three at most. So come to Wyanoke with as little delay as may be, and do your duty bravely.

Kilgariff had no need to apply for a leave of absence. The wound in his neck had been behaving badly for ten days past, and it was now very angry indeed. Day by day a field-surgeon had treated it, to no effect. So far from growing better, it had grown steadily worse.

Under the night-and-day strain of his ceaseless war work, Kilgariff had grown emaciated, and so far enfeebled as to add greatly to the danger threatened by the wound’s condition. On the morning of the day which brought him Dorothy’s letter, the surgeon had found his condition alarming, and had said to him:—

“Colonel, I have before advised you to go to a hospital and have this wound treated. Now I must use my authority as your medical officer and _order_ you to go at once. If I did not compel that, the service would very soon lose a valuable officer.”

“Must it be a hospital, Doctor?” asked Kilgariff. “May I not run up to Wyanoke, instead, and get my friend Doctor Brent to treat me?”

“Capital! Nothing could be better. Besides, the hospitals are full to overflowing, and you’d get scant attention in most of them. Go to Wyanoke by all means, but go at once. I’ll give you a written order to go, and you can make it the basis of your application for sick leave. Act at once, and I’ll go myself to headquarters to impress everybody there with the urgency of the case and especially the necessity for promptitude. You ought to have your leave granted by to-morrow morning.”

It was granted in fact earlier than that, so that before nightfall Kilgariff set out on a horse purchased from an officer of his acquaintance, a horse lean almost to emaciation, but strong, wiry, and full of spirit still. He was an animal in which blood did indeed “tell,” a grandson of that most enduring of racers, Red Eye.

“Give a good account of yourself, old fellow,” said Kilgariff to the animal, caressingly, “and I promise you better rations at Wyanoke than you have had for two months past.”

Whether the horse understood the promise or not, he acted as if he did, and with a long, swinging stride, left miles behind him rapidly.

It was a little past midnight when the well-nigh exhausted officer reached the hospitable plantation; but before going to the house, he aroused the negro who slept on guard at the stables, and himself remained there till the half-sleeping serving-man had thoroughly groomed the animal and placed an abundance of corn and fodder in his manger and rack.

Then the way-worn traveller went to the house, entered by the never closed front door, and made his way to a bedroom, without waking any member of the family.

XX

A MAN, A MAID, AND A HORSE

WHEN Evelyn went to the stables in the early morning, and found a strange horse there, she could not learn how he came to be there, or who had brought him. The negro man who had rubbed down the animal under Kilgariff’s supervision during the night had already gone to the field, and the stable boy who was now in attendance knew nothing of the matter.

The horse gently whinnied a welcome as the girl entered, and his appearance interested her. She bade the stable boy lead him out, so that she might look him over, and his symmetry and muscularity impressed her mightily.

“Poor beastie!” she exclaimed, upon seeing his lean condition, “they have treated you very badly. You haven’t had enough to eat in a month, and you’ve been worked very hard at that. But you are strong and brave and good-natured still, just as our poor, half-starved soldiers are. You must be a soldier’s horse. Anyhow, you shall have a good breakfast. Here, Ben, take this splendid fellow back to his stall and give him ten ears of corn. Rub him down well, and when he has finished eating, turn him into the clover field to graze. Poor fellow! I hope you’re going to stay with us long enough to get sleek and strong again.”

As was always the case when Evelyn caressed an animal, the horse seemed to understand and to respond. He held out his head for a caress, and poked his nose under her arm as if asking to be hugged. Finally he lifted one of his hoofs and held it out. The girl grasped the pastern, saying:—

“So you’ve been taught to shake hands, have you? Well, you shall show off your accomplishments as freely as you please. How do you do, sir? I hope you have slept well! Now Ben has your breakfast ready, so I’ll excuse you, and after breakfast you shall have a stroll in a beautiful clover lot!”

As she finished her playful little speech and turned her head, she was startled to see Kilgariff standing near, looking and listening.

“Oh, Mr. Kilgariff!” she exclaimed, in embarrassment, “I didn’t know you were here. You must think me a silly girl to talk in that way with a horse.”

“Not at all,” he answered; “the horse seemed to like your caressing, and as for me, I enjoyed seeing it more than I can say.”

“Then you wanted to laugh at me.”

“By no means. I was only admiring the gentleness and kindliness of your winning ways. The thought that was uppermost in my mind was that I no longer wondered at the fascination you seem to exercise over animals. Your manner with them is such, and your voice is such, that they cannot help loving you. Even a man would be helpless if you treated him so.”

“Oh, but I could never do that—at least, well—I mean I could—” There the speech broke down, simply because the girl, now flushing crimson, knew not how to finish it. The thought that had suddenly come into her mind she would not utter, and she could think of no other that she might substitute for it.

But her flushed face and embarrassment told Kilgariff something that the girl herself did not yet know—something that sent a thrill of gladness through him in the first moment, but filled him in the next with regretful apprehension. He saw at once that that had happened which he had intended should never happen. Unconsciously, or at least subconsciously, Evelyn Byrd had come to think of him—or, more strictly speaking, to feel toward him without thinking—in a way that signified something more than friendship, something quite unrecognised by herself. Instantly the questions arose in his mind: “What shall I do? Is it too late to prevent this mischief, if I go away at once? If not, how shall I avoid a further wrong? Shall I go away, leaving her to work out her own salvation as best she can? Or shall I abandon my purpose and suffer myself to win her love completely? And in that case how shall I ever atone to her for the wrong I do her? I must in that case deal honestly and truthfully with her, telling her all about myself, so that she may know the worst. Perhaps then she will be repelled and no longer feel even friendship for a man living under such disgrace as mine. It will be painful for me to do that, but I must not consider my own feelings. It is my duty to face these circumstances in the same spirit in which I must face the dangers and hardships of war.”

All this flashed through his mind in an instant, but, without working out the problem to a conclusion, he set himself to relieve the evident embarrassment of the girl—an embarrassment caused chiefly by her consciousness that she had felt embarrassment and shown it. He resolutely controlled himself in voice and manner and turned the conversation into less dangerous channels.

“You were startled at seeing me,” he said, “because you did not know I was here. I came ‘like a thief in the night.’ I got here about midnight, after a hard ride from Petersburg. I saw the horse groomed and fed, and then went to the house and crept softly up the stairs to the room I occupied when I was at Wyanoke before. I came to let Arthur have a look at my wound—”

“Oh, are you wounded again?” interrupted the girl, with a pained eagerness over which a moment later she again flushed in shamed embarrassment.

“Oh, no. It is only that the old wound has been behaving badly, like a petted child, because it has been neglected. But tell me,” he quickly added, in order to turn the conversation away from personal themes, “tell me how the quinine experiments get on. I’m deeply interested in them, particularly the one with dog fennel. Does it yield results?”

Evelyn was glad to have the subject thus changed, and she went eagerly into particulars about the laboratory work, talking rapidly, as one is apt to do who talks to occupy time and to shut off all reference to the thing really in mind.

Kilgariff’s half of the conversation was of like kind, and it was additionally distracted from its ostensible purpose by the fact that he was all the time trying to work out in his own mind the problem presented by his discovery, and to determine what course he should pursue under the embarrassing circumstances. All the while, the pair were slowly walking toward the house. As they neared it, a clock was heard within, striking six. It reminded Evelyn of something.

“It is six o’clock,” she said, “and I must be off to the hospital camp to see how my wounded soldiers have got through the night. I make my first visit soon in the morning now, and Dorothy and I go together later.”

Turning to a negro boy, she bade him go to the stables and bring her mare.

Now it was very plainly Kilgariff’s duty to welcome this interruption, which offered him three hours before the nine o’clock breakfast in which to think out his problem and decide upon his course of action. But a momentary impulse got the better of his discretion, so he said:—

“I will ride over there with you, if I may.”

The girl was mistress of herself by this time, so she said:—

“Certainly, if you wish. I shall be glad of your escort, if you are strong enough to ride a mile.”

She said it politely, but with a tone of cool indifference which led Kilgariff to wish he had not asked the privilege. Then, calling to the negro boy, who had already started on his errand, she bade him:—