CHAPTER XXVI
A year and a half and more went by before Rhoda again saw Delavan. The campaign of 1860, with its grim earnestness and sober exaltation, had passed. She had been stirred by it to her heart’s core, as had all men and women of the North, and had shared her father’s satisfaction over the result. Hers was indeed an even deeper and gladder satisfaction than his, for to passionate abhorrence of slavery and the belief that now was the beginning of its end was added her secret small hope that afterward might come the fulfilment of her long denied love.
“We mustn’t forget, Rhoda,” her father said as they talked over the results of the election, “that probably only a rather small percentage of those who voted for Lincoln want to have slavery abolished in the states where it already exists. They really think the national government has no right to interfere. But if there is war, and undoubtedly there will be, a man of Lincoln’s shrewd common-sense will know that by freeing the slaves he will cut off the South’s right hand. With such a man as he is in the president’s chair I feel confident, though a good many abolitionists don’t, that we can look forward to the end of slavery.”
The southern states were leaving the Union and the Confederacy had been organized. Rhoda knew that Kentucky was rent almost to her every hearthstone with discussion of whether North or South should have her loyalty. Charlotte had lately written: “Everybody is all torn into strips over the question whether or not Kentucky shall join the Confederacy. Nobody talks or thinks or dreams of anything else. But Lloyd and I are going to secede, whether Kentucky does or not.”
Now and then, at long intervals, had come a brief letter from Jefferson Delavan. But he said nothing in any of these missives of love and but little of the mighty questions that were absorbing the minds and hearts and souls of men, women and children, North and South, and her replies were of the same sort. It was as if two loving but far divided souls, journeying through space, sought now and then by a faint call to bridge the distance between them.
The tense, dark days of Lincoln’s inauguration were over, the guns of Sumter had cleared away the last clouds of uncertainty, and war was at hand.
The lilacs were in bloom again and Rhoda, moving slowly down the path, broke off here and there a branch and presently stood at the front gate, her fragrant burden gathered loosely into one arm against her white dress. In her delight in their delicate beauty and savor she bent her face to the flowers, forgetting for the moment the things of the outside world. When she lifted it again Jefferson Delavan stood before her.
“I have come to say good-by, Rhoda,” was his greeting, as he entered the gate.
“Good-by?— You are—going—” she stammered.
“I am going to join the fortunes of the South,” he replied, as they walked up the path. “Kentucky has been false to her sister states and deserted them when they need her most. By a single vote she has decided upon neutrality. You, Rhoda, can understand what a bitter dose that is for me.”