He started; they all saw it. On the threshold of death, some emotion—we never knew what one—drew him back for an instant, and the pale cheek showed a suspicion of color. Though the eyes did not open, the lips moved, and I caught these words:
“Kept word—told no one—she was so—”
And that was all. He died the next instant.
Well! I was woefully done up by this sudden extinction of all my hopes. They had been extravagant, no doubt, but they had sustained me through all my haps and mishaps, trials and dangers, till now, here, they ended with the one inexorable fact-death. Was I doomed to defeat, then? Must I go back to the major with my convictions unchanged but with no fresh proof, no real evidence to support them? I certainly must. With the death of this man, all means of reaching the state of Mrs. Jeffrey’s mind immediately preceding her marriage were gone. I could never learn now what to know would make a man of me and possibly save Cora Tuttle.
Bending under this stroke of Providence, I passed out. A little boy was sobbing at the tent door. I stared at him curiously, and was hurrying on, when I felt myself caught by the hand.
“Take me with you,” cried a choked and frightened voice in my ear. “I have no friend here, now he is gone; take me back to Washington.”
Washington! I turned and looked at the lad who, kneeling in the hot sand at the door of the tent, was clutching me with imploring hands.
“Who are you?” I asked; “and how came you here? Do you belong to the army?”
“I helped care for his horse,” he whispered. “He found me smuggled on board the train—for I was bound to go to the war—and he was sorry for me and used to give me bits of his own rations, but—but now no one will give me anything. Take me back; she won’t care. She’s dead, they say. Besides, I wouldn’t stay here now if she was alive and breathing. I have had enough of war since he—Oh, he was good to me—I never cared for any one so much.”
I looked at the boy with an odd sensation for which I have no name.