"Ned."
How sharp and bitter the contrast between the soul of this chivalrous boy and his vain conceited brother! She loathed herself for her blind stupidity. Why had she preferred him? Why—why—why! The very question cut her. It was not because John Vaughan had chosen to cast his lot with her people of the North. Rubbish! She had a sneaking admiration for Ned because he had dared her displeasure in making his choice. There must be something perverse in her somewhere. She could see it now. It must be so or the evil in John Vaughan's character would not have drawn her as a magnet from the first. She hadn't a doubt now that all the stories about his fast life and his contempt for women were true and much more than gossip had dreamed.
He would write a letter of apology, of course, in due season. He was too shrewd a man of the world, too skillful an interpreter of the whims of women to write at once. He was waiting for her to cool—waiting until she should begin to be anxious. It was too transparent. She would give him a surprise when his letter came. The shock would take a little of the conceit out of him. She would return his letter unopened by the next mail.
When four weeks passed without a word the first skirmish between love and pride began. Perhaps she had been unreasonable after all. Was it right to blame a man too harshly for being mad about the woman he loved? In her heart of hearts did she desire any other sort of lover? Tears of vexation came in spite of every effort to maintain her high position. She had to face the plain truth. She didn't desire a cold lover. She wished him to be strong, manly, masterful—yes, masterful, that was it—yet infinitely tender. This man was simply a brute. And yet the memory of his mad embrace and the blind violence of his kisses had become each day more vivid and terrible—terrible because of their fascination. She accepted the fact at last in a burst of bitter tears.
And then came the announcement in the Daily Republican of his return to the city and his attachment to the company of cavalry at McClellan's headquarters. The thought of his presence sent the blood surging in scarlet waves to her face. There was no longer any question in her mind that she had wounded him too deeply for forgiveness. Her dismissal had been so cold, so curt, it had been an accusation of dishonor. She could see it clearly now. He had poured out his confession of utter love in a torrent of mad words and clasped her in his arms without thought or calculation, an act of instinctive resistless impulse. He had justly resented the manner in which she had repulsed him. Yet she had simply followed the impulse of her girlish heart, and she would die sooner than apologize.
She accepted the situation at last with a dull sense of pain and despair, and tried to find consolation in devotion to work in the hospitals which had begun to grow around the army of drilling volunteers.
Events were moving now with swift march, and her championship of the President gave her days of excitement which brought unexpected relief from her gloomy thoughts. She was witnessing the first movements of the National drama from the inside and its passion had stirred her imagination. Her father's growing hatred of Abraham Lincoln left her in no doubt as to whose master hand had guided the assaults on the rear of his distracted administration.
The fall of Cameron, the Secretary of War, had been the work of her father, with scarcely a suggestion from without. The Abolitionist had determined to force Lincoln to free the slaves at once or destroy him and his administration. They also were whispering the name of their chosen dictator who would assume the reins of power on his downfall.
The President was equally clear in his determination not to allow his hand to be forced and lose control of the Border Slave States, whose influence and power were becoming each day more and more essential to the preservation of the Union. He had succeeded in separating the counties of Western Virginia and had created a new State out of them. His policy of conciliation and forbearance was slowly, but surely, welding Kentucky, Missouri and Maryland to the Nation.
Any tinkering at this moment with the question of Slavery would imperil the loyalty of these four States. He held them now and he refused to listen to any man or faction who asked him to loosen that grip.