After a while one of the colored men stole up. “Dey all gone, Miss Betty,” he said. As he spoke from the house appeared before them another figure, and some one dropped upon his knees and covered his face with his hands. “Jamie, Jamie, little brother!” he groaned. “Would to God I had been the one!”
The startled women lifted their heads. “Brother Tom!” cried Lettice. “Oh, Brother Tom!” Then Aunt Hagar’s words returned to her, and she repeated: “‘The dead shall be alive, and the alive shall be dead.’ Oh, Brother Tom, it is Jamie, our Jamie!”
“Who lost his life in saving mine,” said the young man. “Let us bear him indoors.” And tenderly lifting their burden, they laid him in the great hall.
Lettice felt that it was good to have this lost brother to soothe and comfort her, albeit his return brought no joy, for the shadow was too great. She was confused and heart-broken, so that no explanations were offered that night. Lettice had but asked, “Are you safe here, Brother Tom?” and he had replied: “Safer than elsewhere. They have searched here once and have not found me; they will not come again at once, and we shall be gone before another day. I cannot leave you here to be exposed to these dangers, little sister, and we must get off to Baltimore as soon as ever we can.”
Even the next day they asked no questions, for in the evening, at sunset, they laid Jamie to rest in the old graveyard, and in one corner they buried, too, the British soldier who had met his death through Jamie’s last effort for Rhoda. Friend and foe, the service was read over them, and they were left asleep, with all differences forever stilled.
Rhoda, in her self-control and reticence, gave little evidence of what she felt, and it was only when Lettice saw the anguish in her eyes that she realized that Rhoda’s best love was buried with Jamie; and when she returned to the house she remembered the packet which Jamie had given her. She followed Rhoda to her room to give it to her. The girl was lying, face down, upon the floor, in tearless grief. She did not hear Lettice’s light tap at the door, nor did she heed her entrance. “Jamie, oh, my darling!” she moaned. And Lettice, with eyes overflowing, put her arms around her. “Dear Rhoda,” she said, “he left something for you.” And into her hand she gave the little packet.
Rhoda’s cold fingers closed over it, and in a minute she sat up. “Stay with me, Lettice,” she begged. “We will open this together.” She reverently undid the little box. On top lay a paper on which was written: “For Rhoda, from one who loved her with all his heart. God bless you and keep you and make you happy, my darling. From Jamie.” There was a case underneath. Rhoda lifted it out and touched the spring, to disclose a lock of curly auburn hair and a miniature of Jamie. As his bonny face smiled up at her, Rhoda gave a great cry and shed the first tears her eyes had known since that moment when his spirit passed.
“It is so like, so like,” she murmured. “How I shall treasure it, Lettice. My bonny Jamie, how shall I live through the long years? And you will never know how much I loved you.”
“He knows now,” said Lettice, softly. And she went out, leaving Rhoda more comforted by this than by anything that could have come to her.