Captain Tom stood drinking it all in—the moonlight, on the roof of Westmoreland, shining through the trees. Then he thought of what the old Bishop had told him of Alice, the great pressure brought to bear on her to marry Richard Travis, and of her devotion to the memory of her first love.
“And for her love and her constancy, oh, God, I thank Thee most of all,” he said, looking upward at the stars.
He mounted his horse and rode slowly out into the night, a commanding figure, for the horse and rider were one, and John Paul Jones tossed his head as if to show his joy, tossed his head proudly and was in for a gallop.
Captain Tom's pistols were buckled to his side, for he had had experience enough in the early part of the night to show him the unsettled state of affairs still existing in the country under negro domination.
There were no lights at Westmoreland, but he knew which was Alice's room, and in the shadow of a tree he stopped and looked long at the window. Oh, to tear down the barriers which separated him from her! To see her once more—she the beautiful and true—her hair—her eyes, and to place again the kiss of a new betrothal on her lips, the memory of which, in all his sorrows and afflictions, had never left him. And now they told him she was more beautiful than ever. Twelve years—twelve years out of his life—years of forgetfulness—and yet it seemed but a few months since he had bade Alice good-bye—here—here under the crepe-myrtle tree where he now stood. He knelt and kissed the holy sod. A wave of triumphant happiness came over him. He arose and threw passionate kisses toward her window. Then he mounted and rode off.
At The Gaffs he looked long and earnestly. He imagined he saw the old Colonel, his grandfather, sitting in his accustomed place on the front porch, his feet propped on the balcony, his favorite hound by his side. Long he gazed, looking at every familiar place of his youth. He knew now that every foot of it would be his. He had no bitterness in his heart. Not he, for in the love and constancy of Alice Westmore all such things seemed unspeakable insignificance to the glory of that.
In the old family cemetery, which lay hid among the cedars on the hill, he stood bare-headed before the grave of his grandsire and silently the tears fell:
“My noble old grandsire,” he murmured, “if the spirits of the dead look down on the living, tell me I have not proved unworthy. It was his flag—my father's, and he lies by you wrapped in it. Tell me I have not been unworthy the same, for I have suffered.”
And from the silent stars, as he looked up, there fell on him a benediction of peace.
Then he drew himself up proudly and gave each grave a military salute, mounted and rode away.