Then she recovered her courage.
“I have been trying the cowardly way,” she said aloud, but speaking only to herself. “I must face these things bravely. I’ve been planning to run away again, and I will not do that. I’ve been running away all my life. I’ll never run away again. I’ll go to Wyanoke in the morning.”
With that, she gathered all the sheets on which she had written and dropped them upon the few coals which remained alive. The paper smouldered and smoked for a time. Then it broke into a flame and was quickly consumed.
The girl prepared herself for bed, with a degree of composure which she had not been able to command at any time since the knowledge of Kilgariff’s act had come to her. When she blew out her candle and opened the window, a gust of snow was blown into her face, and she heard the howling of the tempest without.
“It is the first storm of the winter,” she thought, as she drew the draperies about her. “How those poor fellows must be suffering down there in the trenches at Petersburg to-night—half clad, and less than half fed!” Then, as she was sinking into sleep, she thought:—
“I’m glad Mr. Kilgariff is not there to-night.”
The thought startled her into wakefulness again, and during the remaining hours of the night she lay sleeplessly thinking, thinking, thinking.