"For a purpose. Keep it in your pocket; it may serve to protect you."
"What time is it, Doctor?"
"Ten minutes to eleven."
"I must go."
He said no word; but he put up his hands to my face, and made me bend to him, and kissed me.
Before midnight one of General Morell's orderlies had passed me through our cavalry pickets beyond Mechanicsville.
The Doctor's stimulant, or something else, gave me strength, My mind was clear and my will firm. True, I felt indifferent to life; but the lesson which the Doctor had given me I had clearly understood, and I had voluntarily turned the die for duty after it had been cast for ease. All my hesitation had gone, leaving in its place disgust kept down by effort, but kept down. I wanted nothing in life. Nothing? Yes, nothing; I had desire, but knew it unattainable, and renounced its object. I would not hope for a happiness that might bring ruin on another.
To die in the work begun this night seemed to me appropriate; life at the present rate was worse than worthless. Yet I had not yielded to this feeling even; I would be prudent and would accomplish what was hoped for, if my strength should serve.
In General Morell's tent I had been offered a lieutenant's commission,--a blank fully signed and ready to fill, but had rejected it, through vanity perhaps--the vanity that told me to first perform a duty for which the honour had been soothingly offered.