Jones was of Porter's escort, and had on this occasion served as General Porter's messenger.
On the next day, the 8th, I returned to the Sanitary Camp.
XIV
OUT OF SORTS
"Your changed complexions are to me a mirror
Which shows me mine changed too; for I must be
A party in this alteration, finding
Myself thus altered with it."--SHAKESPEARE.
It would have been quite impossible for me to analyze my feeling for Dr. Khayme. His affection for me was unconcealed, and I was sure that no other man was received as his companion--not that he was distant, but that he was not approached. By nature I am affectionate, but at that time my emotions were severely and almost continually repressed by my will, because of a condition of nervous sensitiveness in regard to the possibility of an exposure of my peculiarity, so that I often wondered whether the Doctor fully understood the love and reverence I bore him.
On the morning following the day last spoken of--that is to say, on the morning of May 9th--Dr. Khayme rode off to the old William and Mary College, now become a hospital, leaving me to my devices, as he said, for some hours. I was sitting on a camp-stool in the open air, busily engaged in cleaning my gun and accoutrements, when I saw a man coming toward me. It was Willis.
"Where is the Doctor?" he asked.
"Gone to the hospital; want to see him?"