Chapter IX: Part 9

"I must act at once," she resolved, when the day's march was resumed. "I must flee from the devil of this temptation. If Captain Pegram suffers no relapse to-day, I will bid him good-bye in the morning. No, I will not bid him good-bye. That would be too--well, it would be almost like acting upon that hideous thought. I shall simply go without saying a word to him. Perhaps I shall leave a little note for him, simply telling him that I am going to look after affairs at Willoughby, as he no longer needs his French nurse. I'll be very careful, in writing it, not to--not to make it more than coldly courteous and friendly."

It was nearly nightfall when the cavalcade rejoined the main body of Lee's army. Agatha made haste to secure a careful examination of Baillie by a staff surgeon. He reported that the convalescent man had taken no harm from the journey, but was so far recovered that a month's rest would render him fit for duty again. Assured of this, Agatha sent for Sam and minutely instructed him as to the care of his master on the homeward journey which, she had arranged, was to begin immediately, with the assistance of an ambulance for a part of the way.

Then, early the next morning, she went to Stuart, and preferred a request. In the present disturbed state of things she hesitated to make the journey to Willoughby alone, and she asked for an escort for a day.

Stuart looked at her with a face far sadder than his was accustomed to be, and said:

"I have very bad news for you, Miss Agatha. You cannot go to Willoughby--for there is no Willoughby. That was one of the many plantations ravaged by Pope while he held Northern Virginia. The house and all the barns were burned, and every living animal for a score of miles around was killed. Even if Willoughby had been spared, it would not do for you to live there now. The armies will move to new positions presently,--nobody knows where,--and this northern part of Virginia will be no fit place for women and children to live in till the war is over."

The girl sat pale and speechless, as she listened. It was as if she had received a blow in the face. She had bravely met danger and sorrow and hardship, and had endured them all with heroic resolution. She seemed now quite unable to endure this new trial of her courage. She made no outcry and shed no tears. She simply sat there before the headquarters camp-fire, statue-like in her pallor and her immobility. Stuart gently laid his hand upon her head, and sought to soothe her with a voice that was always gentle when he spoke to a woman.

Agatha seemed not to know what he was doing. She made no response to his words, and as he looked into her face the light went out of her great brown eyes.

A moment later she reeled, and Stuart caught her in his brawny arms.

"Bring a surgeon quick," he commanded.

Then he gently laid the seemingly lifeless form upon a blanket which the sentinel spread upon the ground.

XXXI

_AT WARLOCK AND AT THE OAKS_

For the first time in her life Agatha Ronald was ill. For the first time her strength had given way under prolonged strain. The surgeon who had been summoned to attend her ordered that she should be sent immediately to some place in rear of the army's exposed position, where she could have complete rest.

Unfortunately there was no such place within a day's journey--no place which might not at any hour become the scene of battle or at the least of massive manoeuvring. Nowhere short of Charlottesville was there a secure resting-place for the overwrought nerves that had so stoutly held their own as long as their ministering strength was needed in the service of others.

While this matter was still under perplexed discussion, Marshall Pollard made his timely appearance. Hearing of the arrival of Baillie and Agatha with Stuart's returning column, he had ridden forward from his camp to meet and greet his friends. He had passed a quarter of an hour with the master of Warlock, who was now permitted to sit up most of the time, and who was to start almost immediately on his homeward journey. While they two were talking together, word reached Sam's ears that his "Mis' Agatha" had fallen ill at General Stuart's camp-fire. Marshall went with him immediately to her, under an injunction from Baillie to "get her out of this, Marshall, if you can. Tell her not to mind me, but to take care of herself. Tell her I shall be ready for duty almost immediately--tell her I'm on duty--tell her anything and everything that will persuade her to let you take her to a place of safety."

Marshall was quick to see the necessity of prompt action, and Agatha was far too ill to oppose his plans in any way. Stuart had ordered a little tent stretched for her, and here it was decided she should remain until Captain Pollard could arrange for her removal.

He first secured a week's leave of absence for himself. While arranging that, he had half a dozen of his men scouring the country round about in search of a carriage. One was found which had escaped destruction during the days of Pope's unsparing ravaging. It was an old-fashioned vehicle of family state, swung high upon C springs and stoutly built for service.

In this conveyance, Agatha, still dazed and unresisting, was started on her homeward journey early the next morning. One of Pollard's battery men acted as driver, while Pollard himself rode by the side of the carriage.

About midnight the party reached Charlottesville, where tender, loving hands took charge of Agatha for the night.

The journey had rather rested than wearied her, and the physician who had been summoned to attend her found her free from all positive illness.

"She has need of nothing now but rest and quiet," he said.

When Marshall called upon her in the morning, he found the young woman's mind clear again, and her nerves under control.

"Tell me of Captain Pegram," she eagerly demanded, as soon as she had briefly expressed her gratitude to Pollard for the care he was taking for her comfort.

With that gentle smile which always so invited affection, Marshall reassured her concerning her late patient.

"He is in Sam's excellent hands, and on his way to the rear by this time. He will be on duty again pretty soon. Indeed, if the army were stationed anywhere in particular just now he wouldn't go away from it at all. He would take command of his battery at once, merely reporting himself on the sick-list for a week or two. As it is he must go away for a little while. Now let us talk about yourself. I have a week's leave, granted for the express purpose of letting me do what is best for you. Tell me what is best--or rather--it's the same thing--what is most to your liking? Will you stay here, or--"

"If I may," she answered, quickly, "I want to go home--to The Oaks, I mean, for that is the only home I have in all the world now. Please take me there."

"It would be a very long journey by carriage," he said, as if talking to himself, "but we can make the trip by rail if you are strong enough to stand it."

It was necessary in those days to think of a railway journey as a formidable undertaking for any but the strongest persons. There were no such things known then as sleeping-cars, or drawing-room cars. The railroads were badly built, with the rails spiked down to loose ties, and in no way joined together at their ends. The cars were coupled together by chain links, and operated with hand-brakes, so that when a train was stopping, there was a jolting which in our day would be deemed intolerable. In Virginia at that time there was the additional discomfort of laminated iron rails, and cars badly out of repair.

But Agatha's courage had come back to her now, and she was eager to complete her journey as speedily as possible. So Marshall sent the carriage back to its owner, and with Agatha, took the first train for Lynchburg, whence another railroad would convey them to their destination.

There was very little of conversation between the two as they travelled, for the jarring and the rattle of the disjointed train, as it jolted over its intolerably ill-kept road-bed, made talking difficult and hearing well-nigh impossible. But during the long pauses at the stations Agatha related the story of her adventures, with something of that relish which one always feels in telling of experiences past, which were anything but relishful at the time of their occurrence.

Better still, the two friends talked much of Baillie Pegram, a subject that enlisted the sympathetic interest of both, and drew them closer than ever together as friends.

The good ladies of The Oaks welcomed Agatha with all of tenderness that their dignity would permit. They deeply disapproved of all that she had done, of course, but they reflected that she had suffered much, and as she was not now strong they forebore to emphasise by words of censure the condemnation which they could not avoid manifesting in their manner. Agatha did not much mind their disapproval. This was one of the cases in which, feeling that her conduct had been altogether right, she was not troubled by the contrary opinions of others. Moreover she had other subjects to think about.

Captain Pollard went at once to Warlock, after delivering his charge into her aunts' hands, and on the next day, when he visited The Oaks to ask concerning her, he reported that the master of Warlock had reached home and was still rapidly gaining strength.

This news gave Agatha a little shock. She had intended, as we know, to take herself out of Captain Pegram's life as quickly and as completely as possible, and now circumstances had forced her to place herself near to him again. She knew that as soon as he should be able to ride, ordinary courtesy would compel him to visit her, and--well, she did not want him to do that. She felt herself in the position of a woman who has purposely placed herself in the way of inviting attentions, or at least has suffered herself to be so placed.

She had done nothing of the kind, of course. Indeed, she had had no choice in the matter, but the very thought that Baillie Pegram might so interpret her course, distressed her greatly, in her still nerve-tortured condition. She cared nothing whatever for what others, including her aunts, might think of the matter, but the thought that Baillie Pegram might misunderstand was intolerable.

Her aunts added to her embarrassment by adopting a course which plainly showed that they entertained a fear identical with her own. They sent a note to Warlock every day, inquiring concerning the health of that plantation's master. They made these notes as coldly formal as stilted rhetoric could contrive, and they were at pains to read the missives to Agatha before sending them.

"Why do you do that?" she asked, when the second day's note was read. There was almost a querulous tone in her protest.

"Why, it seems to us proper, dear; we want you to be assured that we make no mention of your presence here, but take the utmost possible pains to show Captain Pegram how entirely you are--"

At that point Agatha rose to her feet and looked indignantly at her relatives. For a moment there was danger of an outbreak of offended pride, but by an effort the girl controlled herself and said, simply:

"Please don't do it any more. I shall feel hurt if you offer again to read to me anything you may have written. If you will excuse me I think I will go to my room now. I am not strong to-day."

It was the custom of the good ladies to protest that they "never could understand Agatha;" but on this occasion they understood her sufficiently to know that they had trodden very near a danger-line which they were more than unwilling to cross.

Baillie Pegram in his turn was by no means minded to submit to the manifest purpose of The Oaks ladies that he should hear nothing about Agatha, beyond what Marshall Pollard had reported to him during the two days of his stay at Warlock. Marshall had gone now, and Baillie wrote in response to the second of the notes:

"I am getting well quite as rapidly as my best friends could wish. There is not the slightest occasion for uneasiness about me. I am even permitted to ride horseback a little. But I am exceedingly anxious for tidings of Miss Agatha, whom you have not mentioned in either of your notes. Will you not send me word concerning her, or better still, if she is well enough to write, will you not ask her to send me a few lines? My gratitude to her for all that she has done for me is very great, and so is my anxiety to know that she is recovering from the painful illness which was caused by her generous self-sacrifice in my behalf."

As Agatha had asked her aunts not to read to her their letters to the master of Warlock, those ladies chose to interpret her request as including his letter to them. They made no mention of the fact that he had written to make inquiries concerning her. She wondered a little that he had not done so, but on the whole, she argued, it was better so.

Baillie was not so easily pleased. He chafed when the next note came from The Oaks, bringing no tidings from Agatha, and when still another of like character followed it, he grew uneasy, lest the silence might mean that Agatha had herself forbidden all mention of her in letters from The Oaks.

"She is taking that method, probably," he argued, "of dismissing me again, and letting me know that I must not presume upon the service she has done me. What a fool I am, to be sure! I have been reckoning upon her devotion to me in my illness and captivity as proof that what I brutally blurted out at Fairfax Court-house was not unwelcome to her after all. With her quick feminine perceptions, she has discovered how I have been misinterpreting her duty doing, and she wants now to show me my error in the simplest way possible."

As he meditated, the soldier impulse in him asserted itself,--the impulse to dare the worst in the hope of achieving the best.

Acting upon that impulse he immediately wrote a note to Agatha, and sent it by Sam, with orders to deliver it to her in person, if possible, and at all events to ask for an answer and fetch it.

In his note he told Agatha of his unanswered inquiries, and of the great uneasiness he felt concerning her health. Finally he begged her to relieve his anxiety by sending a line in reply.

XXXII

_IN RIGHTEOUS WRATH_

The grounds about The Oaks mansion were much more extensive than was customary on Virginia plantations. The late owner, Agatha's father, had cherished the forest growths jealously, permitting no tree to be cut that could in any wise be preserved, and forbidding the encroachment of the lawns immediately about the house upon the wild woodland growths that bordered and surrounded them. It was Agatha's delight on windy autumn days to wander in these woodlands, and on this morning Sam encountered her quite half a mile from the house. She was hatless, and the wind was taking what liberties it pleased with her thick-growing hair, while she, having turned child again in her enjoyment of the brilliant, gusty morning, was wading about in the depths of the fallen leaves, delighting her soul with their rustling.

Sam delivered his note and she read it. Instantly the child spirit in her took flight and she became the strong, resolute, self-contained young woman that she had learned to be during the storm and stress period of her recent life. Her sudden access of dignity did not spare even Sam. Like an officer in battle issuing his orders, she turned to the negro boy and said:

"Return to your master at once. Tell him you met me far from the house. Say to him that I am almost as well as ever, and that I will answer his note during the day. There. Go now, and deliver the message as I have given it to you. Do you hear?"

Sam's face grew long, as he turned about, and Agatha caught sight of it. She was in a mighty rage, but not with Sam. She bethought her that the boy had misunderstood, to the injury of his feelings, so she called to him, and added:

"I did not mean to speak sharply to you, Sam. You don't deserve any but kindly words. I was thinking of something else. How are you since you got back to Warlock, and tell me truly how your master is."

"Thank you, Mis' Agatha," answered the boy, his face all smiles again, "Mas' Baillie he's a-gittin' as lively as a spring chicken what don't mean to be ketched. He rides every day now, an' don't he jes' eat! He'll be all right in a week or two, yo' may be sure. As fer Sam, he ain't never nothin' else but well, specially now dat we done git away from dem Yankees an' back to Warlock ag'in!"

Nevertheless Sam grew distinctly melancholy as he rode homeward, repeating his message time and again in order that he might deliver it correctly. The message seemed to him unduly curt, and certainly the note he had delivered seemed somehow to have angered Agatha. Sam wondered how and why, and he grieved over the circumstance, too, for Sam had taken the liberty of making up his mind that Agatha would make an ideal mistress at Warlock, and that the master of Warlock was planning some such destiny for her. Her message and her manner suggested that she resented all this, and that his master's hopes, which he took for granted, were likely to be disappointed.

Baillie Pegram's interpretation of the message when it was delivered to him did not materially differ from that which Sam had put upon it.

"She resents the liberty I have taken," he thought, "in writing to her directly. She has forbidden her aunts to reply to my inquiries made through them. She has sought in that way to tell me, by indirection, that the old family war between herself and me still endures; that all her suffering and sacrifice in ministering to me was inspired solely by a sense of duty; that she wishes now to end our intimacy as she did two years ago. Clearly that is the state of the case, and she is naturally angry now that I have forced an attention upon her which compels her to tell me directly what she had meant me to infer. What an idiot I was to do that!"

In the meanwhile Agatha had walked rapidly to the house. At the beginning of her journey she indulged her indignation freely. She rehearsed all the bitingly sarcastic things she meant to say to her aunts, all the defiance she intended to hurl at their helpless heads. But as she spent her superfluous vitality in brisk walking, she recovered her self-control.

"I will not scold," she resolved. "That would be undignified. I will be calm and courteous, saying as little as may be necessary to let them see my displeasure. They have grievously compromised my dignity by what they have done. I must not sacrifice what remains of it by a petulant outbreak. They have treated me like a child in pinafores, who must be restrained lest she misbehave. I must show them that I have outgrown pinafores. I must prove myself incapable of childish misbehaviour."

Firm in this determination, she entered the house with Baillie Pegram's note in her hand, and upon joining her aunts before the library fire, she said quite calmly:

"I have a note from Captain Pegram, who has got a notion into his head that I am seriously ill, and that you are concealing the fact from his friendly knowledge. He tells me he has twice asked you for news of me, and you have made no response. Of course you forgot to mention in your notes that I am quite well again."

The ladies looked at each other with troubled eyes. Presently one of them spoke:

"No, dear, we did not forget. We have only been mindful of proprieties which Mr. Pegram seems strangely to forget or ignore. Under the circumstances, and in view of the relations between the Ronalds and the Pegrams, it seemed to us rather impertinent in him to send messages to you, even through us. We intended to rebuke his presumption by ignoring the messages. Why, he even went so far as to ask us to let you write to him yourself."

Agatha received all this in silence, controlling herself with difficulty. It was not until a full minute after her aunt had ceased to speak that she said:

"Go on, please."

"There would seem to be no more to say; for surely it is needless to comment upon Mr. Pegram's crowning impertinence in writing directly to you."

"Go on, please. Tell me all about it. You see I don't at all understand."

By this time the good dames began to realise that Agatha was either very angry or very deeply hurt, so they decided to soothe and placate her. This is how they did it.

"No, dear, I suppose you do not understand. How should you, with such bringing up as your grandfather gave you? Of all the strange perversities--"

"Stop!" cried Agatha, rising from her chair with a look upon her face which her aunts did not understand but gravely feared. Their last spoken words had set her free to speak. She had not dared resent their criticism of Baillie Pegram's conduct. That might have been misinterpreted. But the reflection upon her grandfather was a different matter. She stood there livid to the lips and shaking with the indignation which she was struggling to suppress. After that one word, "Stop!" she remained silent for a space, struggling to restrain the angry utterance that was surging to her lips. At last, speaking in a constrained voice, she said:

"I will not hear another word. Neither you nor any other human being is worthy to speak my grandfather's name except with reverence. He was great, and wise, and unspeakably good. He hated lies and shams and false conventionalities."

Here the roused tigress in Agatha was sharply restrained. She found herself about to indulge in a tirade, and that she was resolved not on any account to do. Still speaking in a voice of enforced calm, she added:

"I must go now and write to Captain Pegram. I shall dine with the Misses Blair at The Forest to-day."

To Baillie she wrote:

"It is very kind of you to feel so much solicitude on my account. But it is needless, as I am quite well again and growing stronger every day. I go in half an hour to dine at The Forest, where I shall remain till to-morrow. After that I shall go to Richmond in search of some way in which I may be of service. I am pleased to hear through Sam that you are so greatly better. Thank you again for all your kindness to me, and good-bye."

Having despatched this note, Agatha donned her hat and cloak and walked out of the house. Without a pause she passed on through the grounds and along the road to the plantation known as The Forest.

She had made no adieus to her aunts. "To do that," she reflected, "I should have to tell lies, or act them. I should have to say I am sorry to leave them, and I am not sorry. Oh, Chummie! the world is very lonely now that you are not in it! But you mustn't grieve in heaven, Chummie. It will not be for long, you know, and while I stay here I'm going to try harder than ever to be true and good and altogether truthful, as you want me to be, and when I go to join you I'll be happy enough to make up for all these little troubles here."

At that moment a merry gust of wind blew off her headgear. She picked it up, but did not replace it on her head. She liked to feel the crisp breezes in her face. She even indulged the fancy that they bore caresses to her from Chummie.

XXXIII

_UNDER RED LEAVES_

Agatha's note, coming after her curt message, was a sore puzzle to its recipient. One might interpret it to mean anything or nothing. It was courteous enough, but its courtesy was colourless and cold. It was such a note as might have been addressed to the veriest stranger. There was nothing in it to reassure the master of Warlock as to Agatha's view of his conduct, nothing to allay his fear that she had resented his inquiries as an impertinence. On the contrary, if that were the meaning of the former silence and of the morning's message, this note was precisely such as a sensitively self-respecting young woman might have written when compelled by his persistence to write to him at all.

It was a very bad quarter of an hour with him, during which he read the missive a dozen times, unable to make out what it meant.

But Baillie Pegram was not a man to despair until he must, or to rest under a painful uncertainty. It was his habit of mind to meet dangers and difficulties half-way, and question them insistently concerning their extent. He called Sam, therefore, and bade him bring the easy-going pacer which he had begun to ride for exercise, and mounting the animal he set off at a gentle gait toward The Forest.

He appeared there half an hour before the four o'clock dinner was announced, and his welcome by his hostesses, Miss Blair and her sister, was all the warmer for the reason that his arrival indicated, more surely than any message from Warlock could have done, the extent of his convalescence.

Perhaps he was welcome also on another account. For the Misses Blair were deeply concerned about Agatha, and they hoped that he might persuade her, as they had failed to do, to give up her plan of going to Richmond and seeking service as a hospital nurse or in some other capacity in which a woman might employ herself. They were deeply concerned as to the matter of nursing for the reason that it was deemed highly improper in Virginia for any but married women to nurse in the military hospitals, where the patients, of course, were men.

Agatha had told them as little as possible of her affairs. She had said nothing whatever of her quarrel with her aunts, only telling them that she had left The Oaks finally, and asking them to send thither for such personal belongings as she had there, so that she might remain overnight at The Forest, and go to Richmond on the morrow. The younger Miss Blair had volunteered to go in person on this errand, and from her the ladies at The Oaks had first learned that Agatha had finally quitted the place in her resentment. They were greatly distressed, and immediately ordered their carriage and drove to The Forest, where Baillie Pegram found them on his arrival.

Their pleadings with Agatha had been earnest, insistent, and wholly fruitless. She had manifested no anger, and they had discovered no resentment in her voice as she replied to them. She had made no complaints and uttered no reproaches. To all their pleadings she had answered, simply:

"I have quite decided upon my course. I shall not change my plans."

The good dames were in such despair that they even welcomed Baillie's coming.

"We have done everything, said everything," they hastily explained to him; "why, we have almost _apologised_ to the child, and all to no purpose. Perhaps you can have some influence, Captain Pegram. Will you not speak to her?"

"I shall speak to her, of course," was his reply. "I am here indeed for that express purpose. But I shall certainly not try to dissuade her from any course that she may desire to pursue. That would be an impertinence of which I am incapable."

The Oaks ladies flushed as he spoke the word "impertinence," remembering their own recent use of the term in connection with his conduct. Perhaps Agatha had told him of that in her letter, they thought. If so it would be most embarrassing for them to dine in his company and hers. So, pleading their great agitation of mind as their excuse, they returned at once to The Oaks, leaving Baillie and Agatha as the only guests of the Misses Blair at dinner.

When left alone with the young woman after dinner, the master of Warlock opened the conversation as promptly as it was his custom to open fire when the proper moment had come.

"Agatha," he began, as the two stood in the piazza in the glow of the early setting sun and in the midst of the blood-red Virginia creepers that embowered the place, "Agatha, do you remember the words I spoke to you on the picket-line at Fairfax Court-house?" Then without waiting for her reply, he continued: "I have come to you now to say those words over again, at a more fitting time and in a more appropriate place. I love you. I have loved you ever since those days in Richmond, those precious days when I first began to know you for what you are. I loved you all through that cruel time when, in obedience to what you believed was your duty, you decreed that there should be 'war between me and thee.' And now after all that you have done and dared for me, my love for a nature so pure, so noble, so heroic, passes understanding. I have a right to tell you this now. Tell me in return, if it displeases you?"

With that absolute truthfulness which was the basis of her nature, Agatha replied as frankly as he had spoken.

"It pleases me," she said. "I had not expected this. I thought I had repulsed you so rudely that--oh! Baillie, you will never know."

In a torrent of tears that were a more welcome answer than any words could have been, she buried her face in her hands.

Half an hour later these two sat by a crackling fire, arranging practical affairs.

"You do not wish to go back to The Oaks, then, even for a few weeks, and to save appearances?"

"No, Baillie, I cannot. I should have to act a lie every hour of my stay there. I should be obliged to pretend friendship for my aunts when I feel nothing of the kind. They have insulted the memory of my grandfather, and they have spoken of you in a way that never so long as I live will I let any human being speak of you without resenting it. I do not care to 'save appearances,' as you put it. Appearances may look out for themselves. 'Saving appearances' is only a sneaking way of lying. No. I will go to some friends in Richmond, if they will let me--"

"Why not go to Warlock?" he asked.

"Why, that would outrage the proprieties beyond forgiveness now that we--well, under the circumstances."

So Mistress Agatha did "care for appearances" and conventions after all. But Baillie did not think of that.

"Why not go there as the mistress of Warlock--as my wife?" he asked. "Why should we not be married to-morrow at Christ-Church-in-the-Woods? I am a soldier. I shall be strong enough to return to duty presently. When I do so I shall want to feel that you are safe at Warlock, that you are mine, my wife to cherish while I live. Say that it shall be so, Agatha! Let me send word to Mr. Berkeley, the rector, to-night, that we shall be at the church at noon to-morrow!"

The girl thought for a moment, and then said:

"Yes, that will be best. For then, if you fall ill or are wounded again, I shall have a right to go to you and care for you. Let it be so. Now you must not ride to Warlock on horseback to-night. It is very cool, and you have already overtaxed your strength. I shall ask Miss Blair to send you over in her carriage."

When he had gone Agatha announced the news to her hostesses and straightway set about writing a score of little notes to be despatched by negro messengers early in the morning, to her friends in the neighbourhood. To her aunts she wrote simply, and without formal address of any kind, the bare statement:

"Captain Baillie Pegram and I are to be married to-morrow, Thursday, at noon, at Christ-Church-in-the-Woods."

This note she sent before going to bed. When it was received at The Oaks, a conversation ensued which was largely ejaculatory:

"How shocking!"

"Yes, and how scandalous!"

"What will people say!"

"The girl must be bewitched!"

"And yet it is better than nursing soldiers, and she an unmarried woman!"

"Perhaps. At any rate it is clear that we can exercise no restraint over the poor, headstrong child."

"No, Captain Pegram has completely undermined our influence. Of course we cannot lend our countenance to the affair by attending!"

"I think we must. Otherwise people will talk. They might even call it a runaway match."

"That would be too dreadful!"

"Yes. I think we must put the best face we can on the affair by attending. In these war-times everything is topsyturvy. Ah, me! What a pity we couldn't have had the child's bringing-up to ourselves!"

"Yes, we should have made a very different woman of her. Anyhow, with this marriage all our responsibility for her will be at an end. And after all, perhaps it is as well to have it so, for if she had remained single there is no knowing at what moment she would have done something else as scandalous as her going North to nurse Mr. Pegram was."

And so they cackled for half the night.

XXXIV

_THE END AND AFTER_

A few weeks later came the news that a campaign was on and battle impending. Burnside had replaced McClellan in command of the Federal armies in Virginia. He had at once begun a campaign against Richmond, moving by way of Fredericksburg. There Lee met him, posting the Southern veterans on the circling hills behind the town and awaiting his adversary's assault.

Baillie Pegram had resumed command of his battery now, but no longer with the light guns that he had used while galloping with Stuart. A captured Federal battery of six twelve-pounder Napoleons had been assigned to him, and with these he took position on the crest of Marye's Heights, where there was presently to occur one of the most heroic battles of all the war.

It was nearly mid-December when Burnside crossed the river and moved to assault Lee. His army, though greater than Lee's, was not quite so great in numbers as it had been when McClellan had commanded it near Richmond's gates; but it was greatly more formidable in all other respects. The men who composed it were war-seasoned veterans now, and its officers had fully learned their trade of command. Moreover the army had successfully held its own against Lee at Sharpsburg, and the confidence inspired by that event was an important element of strength. But in Burnside the Federal administration had again failed to find a leader capable of so employing the North's stupendous resources of men, money, and material as to crush the splendid resistance of the Army of Northern Virginia.

So Burnside failed, as McDowell, and McClellan, and Pope had failed before, and as Hooker, who succeeded him in command, failed even more conspicuously, when, in the following spring, he made the campaign of Chancellorsville.

After Chancellorsville Lee crossed the Potomac again. Then came Gettysburg, which proved to be the turning-point in the war, so far as the armies of Virginia were concerned.

For before the next campaign opened--the campaign of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, and Cold Harbour--the North had recognised in Grant a leader who knew what use to make of the means at his command, and, more important still, a leader who clearly saw that the strength of the Confederacy lay, not in the possession of cities or the holding of strategic positions, but in the superb fighting force of Lee's army. Grant, in supreme command of all the armies of the Union, directed the work of all of them to the one task of crushing Lee, and in the end he accomplished it. When that was done, this most stupendous war in modern history was over.

In all these epoch-making events the master of Warlock did his part, with a devotion that wrought a colonel's stars upon his collar and added honour to the name he bore. During the long winter of 1863-64, while the mud-bound armies lay helplessly idle in winter quarters, Baillie had Agatha with him in his log hut near Orange Court-house, and before the campaign opened at the Wilderness in the spring, an heir to Warlock was born in camp,--a child veritably "cradled in a revolution."

Agatha was near her husband, too, during the long siege of Petersburg, though she could not be actually with him; for his place was on the lines, where the "scream of shot, and burst of shell, and bellowing of the mortars" were ceaseless by night and by day, for the space of eight months, before the end came. But she was always near at hand, as one of that heroic band of women who stayed and starved in the beleaguered city, heedless of the storm of huge shells that daily wrecked buildings there and tore cavernous trenches in the streets. She remained there to the end as the others did, in order that they might minister in loving, life-saving ways to the wounded, who were daily brought in from the lines on ever-busy litters.

When at last the attenuated lines that had so long and so heroically held their ground against an ever-increasing disparity of numbers, were broken, and Lee ordered the instant evacuation of the city, Agatha made her way on foot to Warlock, and there, with her babe, awaited the return of the man she loved, and whose voice she fancied she could hear in the receding echoes of the cannon.

He came at last,--ten days later,--and Agatha greeted him with loving looks and words that cheered him in that despondency that at first made every returning Confederate lament that he had not been permitted to share the fate of those who had fallen facing the foe.

Over the mantel in that family room which in Virginia was always called "the chamber," Agatha hung up the artillery sword, the pistols, the colonel's sash, and the Mexican spurs that the master of Warlock had worn in his campaigning.

"Those are for the little boy to see daily as he grows up, so that he may know what manner of man his mother wishes him to become--what manner of man his mother loves and reveres."

Then she brought two other mementos and hung them also on the wall. One was the sergeant-major's jacket on which she had stitched the chevrons on the day before Manassas.

"So you found the old jacket, did you?" asked Baillie. "I kept it as a reminder of you."

"Yes--I know. I found it in the little closet where you had hung it. I should have left it there always, just as your hands had placed it, if--if you had not come back to Warlock again."

She was weeping now, but her face was joyous in spite of the tears. For had he not come back to her, strong and well and still young? And should not they two find ways in which to meet their present poverty with stout hearts and heads erect?

"We must 'look up,' Baillie, 'and not down--forward and not backward.' We have each other left--"

"And the boy--_our_ boy!" he interrupted. "Yes, we have enough to live for--enough to enrich our lives to the end. And thanks to you I have courage left both to do and to endure."

"Courage? Of course. You could never lose that and still live. It is as vital a part of you as your head itself is."

Then she brought the other memento and fastened it into its place. It was a faded red feather.

"I have carried that on my person," she said, "ever since that day at Fairfax Court-house when you first told me that you loved me."

* * * * *

A few months later Marshall Pollard came. He hobbled upon a cork leg which he had not yet learned to use with ease, but the old smile was on his face, the old cheer in his voice.

"Agatha," he said, "I should like to occupy my old quarters here during my stay, if I may. You see, Baillie, it is as I told you long years ago--I must ask leave of my lady now. But I don't mind, as my lady happens to be Agatha instead of some other."

"And your other prediction is fulfilled, too," answered the master of Warlock, "the prediction that you made out there by the plantation gate. The old life of Virginia is completely gone, the old conditions have been utterly swept away. We can never re-create them. We can never bring the old life back, and perhaps it is better so. We Virginians had for generations lived in the past. Our manner of life and all our conceptions of living were those of a century ago. We had not kept step with progress. We have been rudely shaken out of the lethargic ease that was so delightful and perhaps so bad for us. We are free now to create a new life in tune with that of the modern world.

"And we shall do that right manfully. We shall develop the resources of our region, and the South will grow more prosperous than it ever was before. Better still, our children will be educated in the gospel of work, and learn the lesson that was never taught to you and me till war came to teach us, that it is in strenuous endeavour, and not in paralysing ease, that a man finds the greatest happiness in life."

"Tell me of your plans, Baillie."

"They are not mine. They are Agatha's. We have arranged to convert this plantation, and The Oaks, and all the land round about--for the company we have formed has bought every acre that could be had--into a nest of coal mines. The deposit is a rich one, you know, and I have had no difficulty in getting practical men with abundant capital to join me in the enterprise. We are already building a branch railroad to carry our product. But there is to be no shaft sunk within half a mile of Warlock House, so that I shall be 'master of Warlock' still. Tell us now of your own affairs, Marshall."

"There is not much to tell. Thanks to Agatha's wonderful economy in spending, I still have investments at the North which yield me a sufficient income for my small needs. I have divided my plantation into little farms, and have let them to the best of the negroes and to some white farmers. I am to get my rentals in the shape of a share of the crops. This sets me free to do the work that best pleases me. You know I have been writing in a small way with some success ever since I grew up. I shall write some books now. I think I have some messages to deliver that some at least of my fellow men may be the better or the happier for hearing."

"But you will want to marry some day."

"No. My 'some day' died years ago."

THE END.

* * * * *

The Master of Warlock

By GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON, Author of "Dorothy South," "A Carolina Cavalier." Six Illustrations by C. D. Williams.

"THE MASTER OF WARLOCK" has an interesting plot, and is full of purity of sentiment, charm of atmosphere, and stirring doings. One of the typical family feuds of Virginia separates the lovers at first; but, when the hero goes to the war, the heroine undergoes many hardships and adventures to serve him, and they are happily united in the end.

* * * * *

Dorothy South

A STORY OF VIRGINIA JUST BEFORE THE WAR

Baltimore Sun says:

"No writer in the score and more of novelists now exploiting the
Southern field can, for a moment, compare in truth and interest to
Mr. Eggleston. In the novel before us we have a peculiarly
interesting picture of the Virginian in the late fifties. We are
taken into the life of the people. We are shown the hearts of men
and women. Characters are clearly drawn, and incidents are
skilfully presented."

* * * * *

A Carolina Cavalier

A STIRRING TALE OF WAR AND ADVENTURE

Philadelphia Home Advocate says:

"As a love story, 'A Carolina Cavalier' is sweet and true; but as a
patriotic novel, it is grand and inspiring. We have seldom found a
stronger and simpler appeal to our manhood and love of country."

* * * * *

The Captain

By CHURCHILL WILLIAMS, author of "J. Devlin--Boss." Illustrated by A. I. Keller.

Who is the Captain? thousands of readers of this fine book will be asking. It is a story of love and war, of scenes and characters before and during the great civil conflict. It has lots of color and movement, and the splendid figure naming the book dominates the whole.

* * * * *

J. Devlin--Boss

A ROMANCE OF AMERICAN POLITICS.

Mary E. Wilkins says:

"I am delighted with your book. Of all the first novels, I believe
yours is the very best. The novel is American to the core. The
spirit of the times is in it. It is inimitably clever. It is an
amazing first novel, and no one except a real novelist could have
written it."

End of Project Gutenberg's The Master of Warlock, by George Cary Eggleston