"I do not know. Why?"
"You were in such close and long conversation that you seemed to be old friends."
"There were reasons for what we said."
She looked at him so frankly that he was ashamed, but she, recognizing his tone and the sharpness of it, was not displeased. On the contrary, she felt a warm glow, and the woman in her urged her to go further. She spoke well of the Secretary, his penetrating foresight and his knowledge of the world and its people—men, women and children. Prescott listened in a somewhat sulky mood, and she, regarding him with covert glances, was roused to a singular lightness that she had not known for many days. Then she changed, showing him her softer side, for she could be as feminine as any other woman, not less so than Helen Harley, and she would prove it to him. Becoming all sunshine with just enough shadow to deepen the colours, she spoke of a time when the war should have passed—when the glory of this world with the green of spring and the pink of summer should return. Her moods were so many and so variable, but all so gay, that Prescott began to share her spirits, and although they were retreating from a lost field and the cannon still muttered behind them, he forgot the war and remembered only this girl beside him, who walked with such easy grace and saw so bright an outlook.
Thus the retreat continued. The able-bodied soldiers of the brigade were drafted away, but the women and wounded men went on. Grant never ceased his hammer strokes, and it was necessary for the Southern leaders to get rid of all superfluous baggage. Prescott, singularly enough, found himself in command of this little column that marched southward, taking the place of his friend Talbot, lost in a mysterious way to the regret of all.
Mr. Sefton left them the day after his talk with Lucia, and Prescott was not sorry to see him go, for some of his uneasiness departed with him. Harley, vain, fretful and complaining, gave much trouble, yielding only to the influence of Mrs. Markham, with whom Prescott did not like to see him, but was helpless in the matter. Helen and Lucia were the most obedient of soldiers and gave no trouble at all. Helen, a warm partisan, seemed to think little of the great campaign that was going on behind her, and to concern herself more about something else. Yet she was not unhappy—even Prescott could see it—and the bond between her and Lucia was growing strong daily. Usually they were together, and once when Mrs. Markham spoke slightingly of the "Northern woman," as she called Lucia, Helen replied with a sharpness very remarkable for her—a sharpness that contributed to the growing coldness between them, which had begun with the power Mrs. Markham exercised over Helen's brother.
Prescott noticed these things more or less and sometimes they pained him; but clearly they were outside his province, and in order to give them no room in his mind he applied himself more diligently than ever to his duties, his wound now permitting him to do almost a man's work.
They marched slowly and it gave promise of being a long journey. The days grew very hot; the sun burned the grass, and over them hung clouds of steamy vapour. For the sake of the badly wounded who had fever they traveled often by night and rested by day in the shade. But that cloud of war never left them.
The days passed and distant battles still hung on their skirts. The mutter of the guns was seldom absent, and they yet saw, now and then, on the horizon, flashes like heat-lightning. One morning there was a rapid beat of hoofs, a glitter of sabers issuing from a wood, and in a moment the little convoy was surrounded by a troop of cavalry in blue.
"Only wounded men and women," said their leader, a young colonel with a fine, open face. "Bah, we have no time to waste with them!"