A War-Time Wooing: A Story

by Charles King

The nurse's smiles of assent are beaming. Whether she, too, has seen that photograph Abbot cannot tell. That she has had the feminine keenness of vision in sighting a possible romance is beyond question. The secret-service official is at Abbot's side as he turns back from the door.

"I shall see you again, perhaps to-morrow," he says; "meantime there is a good deal for us to do," and before the nurse has reached the sick man's door, she is politely accosted by the same urbane young man, and is by no means sorry to stop and talk with somebody about her sad-faced old patient and his wonderfully pretty daughter.

It was Abbot's purpose to devote a little time that afternoon to answering the letter received but yesterday from Miss Winthrop. It needs no telling—the fact that there had never been a love-affair in their engagement; and no one can greatly blame a woman who is dissatisfied with a loveless match. Viva Winthrop was not so unattractive as to be destitute of all possibility of winning adorers. Indeed, there was strong ground for believing that she fully realized the bliss of having at least one man's entire devotion. Whatsoever evil traits may have cropped out in Mr. Hollins's army career, she had seen nothing of them, and knew only his thoughtful and lover-like attentions while they were abroad, and his assiduous wooing on his return. Paul Abbot had never asked for her love—indeed, he had hardly mentioned the word as incidental to their engagement. Nevertheless, yielding to what she had long been taught to consider her fate, she had accepted the family arrangement—and him—and was the subject of incessant and enthusiastic congratulation. Abbot's gallant service and distinguished character as an officer had won the hearty admiration of all the circle in which she lived and moved and had her being, and she was thought an enviable girl to have won the love of so brave and so promising a man. A little more reserved and cold than ever had Miss Winthrop become, and the smile with which she thanked these many well-wishers was something wintry and weary in the last degree. If he had only loved her, there might have bloomed in her heart an answering passion that would have filled her nature, and made her proudly happy in her choice. But that he had never had for her anything more than a brother-and-sister, boy-and-girl sort of affection—a kind, careless, yet courteous tenderness—was something she had to tell herself time and again, and to hear as well from the letters of a man whose letters she should have forbidden.

Even in his astonishment at the charge brought against him, and in his indignation at the accusation of deceit, Paul Abbot cannot but feel that allowances must be made for Viva Winthrop. He meant to marry her, to be a loyal and affectionate husband; but he had not loved her as women love to be loved, and she was conscious of the lacking chord. That she had been deceived and swindled, too, by some shameless scoundrel, and made to believe in her fiancé's guilt, was another thing that was plain to him. She had probably been told some very strong story of his interest in this other girl. Very probably, too, Hollins was the informer and, presumably, the designer of the plot. Who can tell how deep and damnable it was, since it had been carried so far as to induce the Warrens to believe that he was the writer of scores of letters from the front? Then again, ever since he had raised that fainting girl in his arms, especially ever since the moment when her lovely eyes were lifted to his face and her sweet lips murmured his name, Paul Abbot has been conscious of a longing to see her again. Not an instant has he been able to forget her face, her beauty, her soft touch; the wave of color that rushed to her brow as he met her at her father's door when the nurse brought her, still trembling, back to the old man's bedside. He had murmured some hardly articulate words, some promise of coming to inquire for her on the morrow, and bowed his adieu. But now—now, he feels that not only Genevieve, but that Bessie Warren, too, has been made a victim of this scoundrel's plottings, and, though longing to see her and hear her speak again, he knows not what to say. It was hard enough to have to deny himself to the poor old doctor when he came out to the Monocacy. Could he look in her face and tell her it was all a fraud; that some one had stolen and sent her his picture? some one had stolen and used his name, and, whatsoever were the letters, all were forgeries? No! He must wait and see Doctor Warren, and let her think him come back to life—let her think they were his letters—rather than face her, and say it was all a lie. Yet he longs to see her once again.

But to Viva he must write without further delay. Her letter unquestionably frees him, and does it with a brusqueness that might excuse a man for accepting the situation without a word. If the engagement has ever been irksome to him it is now at an end, and he is in no wise responsible. Giving him no opportunity for denial, she has accused him of breach of faith and cast him off. Wounded pride, did he love her deeply, might now impel him to be silent. A sense of indignity and wrong might drive many a man to turn away at such a juncture, and leave to the future the unravelling of the plot. There are moments, it must be confessed, when Major Abbot is so stung by the letter that he is half disposed to take it as final, and let her bear the consequences of discovery of the fraud; but they are quickly followed by others in which he is heartily ashamed of himself for such a thought. Right or wrong, Viva Winthrop is a woman who has given her life into his hands; a woman who has been reared in every luxury only to be denied the one luxury a woman holds most precious of all. He has not been a devoted lover any more than he has been disloyal; and now that trouble has come to her, and she is deceived, perhaps endangered, Major Abbot quietly decides that the only obvious course for a gentleman to follow is to crush his pride under foot and to act and think for her. And this, after several attempts, is what he finally writes her:

"Your letter came last night, dear Viva, and I have thought long over it before answering. It is all my fault that this constraint has hung over your letters. I have seen it for months, and yet made no effort until lately to have it explained. Long ago, had I done so, you would probably have given me the reason, and I could have assured you of the error into which you were led. Now it seems that you and I are not the only ones involved.

"Neither to Miss Warren nor any other girl have I written since our engagement; but her father has been to see me, and tell me that many letters purporting to come from me have been received, and I have hardly time to recover from that surprise when your indignant charge is added. Taken together, the two point very strongly to a piece of villainy. You could never have believed this of me, Viva, without proofs; and I feel sure that letters must have been sent to you. Now that we are pushing every effort to detect and punish the villain who has wrought this, and I fear other wrongs, such letters will be most important evidence, and I conjure you to send them to me by express at once. Father would come for them, but I need him here. I do not seek to inquire into your personal correspondence, Viva, but letters that bear upon this matter are of vital weight.

"As to my dismissal, may I not ask you to reconsider your words, and, in the light of my assurance that I am innocent of the sin with which you have charged me, permit me to sign myself, as ever, lovingly and faithfully yours?

Paul."

It is no easy letter to write. He wants to be calm and just, and that makes it sound cold and utterly unimpassioned. Beyond doubt she would be far happier with a fury of reproaches, cutting sarcasm, and page after page of indignant denial. He also wants to be tender when he thinks of what he has not had to lavish on her in the past, and that prompts him to the little touch of sentiment at the close—a touch that is perhaps unwarranted by the facts in the case. There is a third matter, one that he does not want to mention at all, a name he hates to put on any page addressed to her; but he knows that it is due her she should be told the truth, and at last, just as sunset is coming, he adds a postscript: