“I believe so, indeed,” she answers, looking at him fondly—proudly, and smiling through her tears.
“Why, Arthur, I would not keep you if I could, now. It is such as you who should be to the fore at present, and how could they supply your place?”
He makes no reply for a moment, but presses his kisses faster upon the soft hair and sweet, up-turned face, and he is sad and heavy at heart; though he will affect as much cheerfulness as he can, with the object of making light of things. And there seems some excuse for her implied encomium, looking at him as he stands—ready and calm, entirely devoid of any affectation of the military in his dress or accoutrements; but yet, the very ideal of the frontier civilian soldier.
“Keep up a brave heart, my own,” he murmurs again. “The day will soon come when we shall look back to this, as one of the sad experiences of the past, even as we look back to that other time. This is a mere passing minute compared with that.”
“Ah, yes. Now I am delaying you, and you must go. God keep you, darling, and bring you back to me safe again. Good-bye.”
One more strong, loving embrace, and he is gone. He throws himself upon his horse, which Sam has with difficulty been holding, and its impatient hoof-strokes ring through the empty street as he turns for one last look at the graceful figure waving him a farewell from the gate, and for the moment he feels inclined to retrace his steps, go straight back and resign the post which, all unsought, has been thrust upon him, and allow the war to take care of itself as far as he is concerned.
And Lilian, returning to the deserted room, now so desolate and empty to her, as the dawn reduces the light of the candles to a pale garish flicker, feels the tears welling up afresh as she reproaches herself for not having kept him at any cost, for round her heart is a terrible foreboding of evil to come—how, when, and in what form the future will reveal. Yet the feeling is there.
We must follow the wayfarer. Throughout the whole day he rode mechanically forward, absorbed in his own thoughts. A heavy storm drove him for shelter to a wretched roadside inn; but ever impatient to be moving, he left before it was nearly over. The roads wet and slippery with the rain rendered progress slow, so that by the time it grew dark he was still some miles from Hicks’ farm, where he intended to pass the night.
“I’m afraid we’ve lost the way,” he ruminated, as having gone some distance up a long, bush-covered valley, he began to feel rather out of his bearings. “Sam! Where the devil are we?”
“Don’t know, Inkos. I never was here before. Look. There’s a house!”