"Paul, I want you to promise me another thing. Mr. Hollins has very few friends in the regiment. He is poor, sensitive, and he feels it keenly. He is our kinsman, though distant, and he placed me under obligations abroad by his devotion to mother, and his courtesy to me when we needed attention. He thinks you dislike him, as well as many of the others. Remember what he is to us, and how hard a struggle he has had, and be kind to him—for me."
And though his college remembrances of Mr. Hollins were not tinged with romance, Paul Abbot was too glad and proud in the thought of going to the front—too happy and prosperous, perhaps, to feel anything but pity for the quartermaster's isolation. He made the promise, and found its fulfilment, before they had been away a fortnight, a very irksome thing. Hollins fairly lived at his tent and better men kept away. Gradually they had drifted apart. Gradually the feeling of coldness and aversion had become so marked that he could not conceal it; and finally, after one of the frequent lapses of which the quartermaster was guilty, there had come rupture of all social relations, and the only associate left to Mr. Hollins was the strange character whom he had foisted upon the regiment at its organization—the quondam quartermaster-sergeant, Rix.
But in all the marching and fighting of the battle summer of '62, these things were of less account than they had been during the inaction of the winter and early spring, until, at the Monocacy, Mr. Abbot's curiosity was excited by the singular language used by Rix when ordered under guard. What could such a man as he have to do with the affairs, personal or professional, of the officers of the regiment? It was rabid nonsense—idle boasting, no doubt; and yet the new-made major found that melodramatic threat recurring to his mind time and again.
Another thing that perplexed him was the fact already alluded to, that during the winter Viva's letters, never too frequent or long, had begun to grow longer as to interval and shorter as to contents. He made occasional reference to the fact, but was referred to the singular circumstance that "he began it." Matters were mended for a while, then drifted into the old channel again. Then came the stirring incidents of June; the sharp, hard marches of July and August; the thrilling battles of Cedar Mountain and Second Bull Run; and he felt that his letters were hardly missed. Then came the dash at Turner's Gap; his wounds, rest, recovery, and promotion. But there was silence at home. He had not missed her letters before. Now he felt that they ought to come, and had written more than once to say so.
And now, alone in his room, he is trying to keep cool and clear-headed; to fathom the mystery of his predicament before going to his father and telling him that between Genevieve Winthrop and himself there has arisen a cloud which at any moment may burst in storm.
Her letter—the first received since Antietam—he has read over time and again. It must be confessed that there is a good deal therein to anger an honest man, and Abbot believes he is entitled to that distinction:
"You demand the reason for my silence, and shall have it. I did not wish to endanger your recovery, and so have kept my trouble to myself, but now I write to tell you that the farce is ended. You have utterly broken your promise; I am absolved from mine. The fact that you could find time to write day after day to Miss Warren, and neglect me for weeks, would in itself be justification for demanding my release from an engagement you have held so lightly. But that you should have sought and won another's love even while your honor was pledged to me, is more than enough. I do not ask release. I break the bond—once and for all.
"You will have no place to receive your letters at the front. They, with your ring, and certain gifts with which you have honored me from time to time, will be found in a packet which is this day forwarded to your mother.
"Genevieve Winthrop."
Abbot is seated with his head buried in his hands. That name again! the girl who fainted at sight of him! the old man who was prostrate at his denial on the Monocacy! the picture of himself in her desk! and now, this bitter, insulting letter from the woman who was to have been his wife! Rix's words at the field hospital!—what in Heaven's name can it all mean? What network of crime and mystery is this that is thrown around him?