“Dear Mother!” he whispered pressing her hand. After breakfast he went to his office and read over slowly the letters he had received from Sallie, kissed them one by one, tied them up and sent them to her mother. He took the ring out of his pocket and locked it in one of his drawers.
“I can’t work to-day. It’s no use trying!” he muttered looking out of his window. He locked his office and started down town with no purpose except in the walk to try to fight his pain. Instinctively he found his way to Tom Camp’s cottage.
“Tom, old boy, I’m in deep water. You’ve been there. I just want to feel your hand.”
Tom was clearing up his kitchen with one hand and holding the other tight over the wound near his spinal column. He had suffered untold agonies through the night past and was suffering yet, but he never mentioned it.
“You’ve just got your blues again!” Tom laughed.
“No, a devil has stabbed me in the back in the dark.” And he told Tom of his love and his inexplicable trouble.
“So, so!” Tom mused with dancing eyes, “The General’s gal Miss Sallie! My! my! but ain’t she a beauty! Next to my own little gal there she’s the purtiest thing in No’th Caliny. And you’re her sweetheart, and she told you she loved you?”
“Yes.”
“Then what ails you? Man, to hear that from such lips as she’s got’s music enough for a year. You want the whole regimental band to be playin’ all the time. If she loves you, that’s enough now to give you nerve to fight all earth and hell combined.” Tom urged this with an enthusiasm that admitted no reply.
Flora had climbed in his lap, and was going through his pockets to find some candy.