It came glowing on with all the graces and soft splendors of the season as if it bore, too, none of the prosaic recall to the labors and sordid routine and unavailing troubles and vexations of the workaday world. The camps were alive, the drums were beating, and all the echoes of the hills gave voice to martial summons. The flag was floating anew from the heights of the fort in the fresh and fragrant sunshine, and now and again a bar or two of the music of a military band in the distance came on the wind. The clatter of wagon wheels was audible from the stony streets of the little city. The shriek of a locomotive split the air as an incoming train whizzed across the bridge. The river craft steamed and puffed, and blockaded the landing, now backing water and now forging forward, remonstrating with bells and whistles in strenuous dialogue.
It was a day like yesterday, yet to Baynell all the world had changed. No day could ever be the same. Life itself was made up of depreciated values. The blow had fallen so heavily, so suddenly, so conclusively. All, all was dead! It was much with a sense of decorous observance, of reverential respect, that he made haste to bury his slain hopes, his foolish dream, his ardent expectations out of sight, never to rise again. It was unwise to linger here, but not because of his own interest, he said to himself. It would not unfit him for his duty. This was all that was left to him. His feeling for this had never swerved. It was unaffected—all apart from what had come and gone. But his presence could but be distasteful to her. And any moment might reveal his state of feeling to others—to Judge Roscoe, who would resent it if it should suggest an unwelcome urgency. And the neighbors—he had not been unnoting of the glances of surprise that had already greeted that radiant figure in white and red yesterday. While he winced a little from the realization that his sudden departure would illustrate the sad plight of a love-lorn suitor, disregarded and cast aside,—for he had a thousand keen susceptibilities to pride,—and he would fain the tongues of gossips should forbear this sacred theme, it were best that he should go, and that shortly.
When he appeared at the breakfast-table, pale and a trifle haggard, he gave no other token of his long vigil and the radical change that he had suffered in his life and prospects. He was a man of theory. He valued his self-respect. He insisted on his self-control. He had exerted all his capacities, summoned all the resources of his courage; and this was the more needed because of the unconventional, informal footing on which he stood with the family. To say farewell and ride away might seem easy enough, but this was like quitting a home with affectionate domestic claims. When he said that he thought he must return to camp to-day, the twin "ladies" laid down knife and fork to enter their protest. They lifted their voices in plaintive entreaty, and the deaf-mute looked at Baynell with limpid eyes and a quivering lip. But Uncle Ephraim, bringing in the waffles, had a vague suggestion of "It's time, too," in the wag of his head. Judge Roscoe doubtless experienced a vivid realization of the advantage to accrue to the young soldier in the attic, whose security in his hiding-place was so endangered by the presence of the Federal officer, for he was very guarded even in his first cordial phrases, and thenceforward said no more than policy required. The twin "ladies," however, continued to loudly urge that the captain might find lizards in his cot; and asked if his tent had a floor; and warned him that frogs were everywhere now. "Tree-toads, o-o-oh! with injer-rubber feet," cried Geraldine, shudderingly, "that blow out and climb!"
"And you'll have no little girl to put a lump of sugar in your after-dinner coffee, Captain," said Adelaide, impressing the merits of her methods.
"And no little girl to bring you a lighted taper for your cigar," chimed in Geraldine.
"It's my turn to-day, Ger'ldine," cried the enterprising Adelaide, springing from her chair to monopolize the precious privilege.
"No—no! mine—mine! You had it yesterday!" cried Geraldine, racing after her out of the room.
"'Twas day before!" protested Adelaide's voice far up the hallway.
"You had better get your cigar-case ready, to bestow the boon on the first comer," suggested Mrs. Gwynn. She had entirely recovered her equanimity, as he perceived. The state of his unsought affections was naught to her. The wreck of his heart—she had known wrecked hearts for a more bitter cause! Doubtless she thought the pain transitory in his case; already its contemplation seemed to have passed from her mind like a tale that is told. She was sedately suave as always, barely attentive, preoccupied, her usual manner, so incongruous with her youth and beauty, so at variance with her attire from the old wardrobe of by-gone days,—the fresh white lawn, flecked with light blue, the ruffles finished with "footing," and with a bobinet scarf about her throat, wherein was thrust a pin of a single rose carved in coral. She was like some dainty maiden, no refugee from the world, sad and widowed.
She led the way to the library, partly to see that the "ladies" did not set themselves aflame as their short skirts flickered about the small dully burning fire, still lighted night and morning against the chill of the crisp vernal air. They were, indeed, leaping back and forth over the fender with some temerity, and Baynell, seating himself by the table, his cigar between his teeth, thought it best to dispose of both the lighted spills by not drawing at all till both were alternately offered and the extinction of each secured. Then, as the "ladies" flew back to the dining room and out to the parterre, having volunteered to gather the rest of the flowers for the vases, Leonora and Baynell were left for the time together.