To all this Drusilla readily agreed. In the fulness of her faith she had placed her fate in his hands and left it there.
This plan was carried out. The same day he told his old servant that urgent business called him away from home, and that he should leave for Baltimore the next morning.
Dorset, prompt and punctual, had his master’s portmanteau packed and his breakfast on the table by eight o’clock.
And Mr. Alexander left Richmond by the nine o’clock train for Baltimore, intending to take the next day’s train from the latter city to Washington.
Drusilla knew that she could not hear from him for three or four days, so she waited three days and then went to the post-office, where, for greater secrecy, her letters were to be left until called for. Here she found a letter—the first genuine love letter she had ever received. She had, from childhood, written many letters to Alexander, and received many from him—all, his and hers, filled with love, but not such love as this. Drusilla eagerly read it over in the office, and then, “all on fire with joy,” she hurried home and locked herself in her own room, to feast on her letter undisturbed and at leisure.
Every day she went to the post-office, and every day she received one of these ardent outpourings of love.
Alexander had been absent about ten days, when one morning on inquiry, she received a letter that summoned her at once to Washington.
That night Drusilla quietly packed her carpet bag with a few necessaries, and before day the next morning she slipped out of the house and took the early train for Washington.
The train reached Alexandria early in the afternoon, and Drusilla found her lover on the platform at the station.
“Come, dear love,” he said, “I have a carriage waiting. We must be married in this town, and then I will take you to Washington.”