“Gay and happy, gay and happy,
We'll be gay and happy still.”
VII. — “I WAIT MY TIME”
When he returned to Winchester it was to find Virginia already there as Jack Morson's wife. Since her marriage in late summer she had followed her husband's regiment from place to place, drifting at last to a big yellow house on the edge of the fiery little town. Dan, passing along the street one day, heard his name called in a familiar voice, and turned to find her looking at him through the network of a tall, wrought-iron gate.
“Virginia! Bless my soul! Where's Betty?” he exclaimed amazed.
Virginia left the gate and gave him her hand over the dried creepers on the wall.
“Why, you look ten years older,” was her response.
“Indeed! Well, two years of beggary, to say nothing of eight months of war, isn't just the thing to insure immortal youth, is it? You see, I'm turning gray.”
The pallor of the long march was in his face, giving him a striking though unnatural beauty. His eyes were heavy and his hair hung dishevelled about his brow, but the change went deeper still, and the girl saw it. “You're bigger—that's it,” she said, and added impulsively, “Oh, how I wish Betty could see you now.”