"But now?"
"I know that love can't be killed by a kiss."
She stopped suddenly, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him. He held her close for a moment, murmuring:
"My sweetheart—my darling!"
Through four swift beautiful hours they sat on a log, held each other's hands, and told over and over the old sweet story. Another long, tender embrace and he was gone. She stood on the little wharf, among hundreds of weeping sisters and mothers and sweethearts, and watched his boat drift down the river. He waved his handkerchief to her until the big unfinished dome of the Capitol began to fade on the distant horizon.
[CHAPTER XIII]
[THE SPIRES OF RICHMOND]
To meet three great armies converging on Richmond along the James under McClellan, from the North under McDowell, and the West by the Shenandoah Valley, the South had barely fifty-eight thousand men commanded by Joseph E. Johnston and eighteen thousand under Stonewall Jackson.
The Southern people were still suffering from the delusion of Bull Run and had not had time to adjust themselves to the amazing defeats suffered at Fort Henry and Fort Donaldson, to say nothing of the stunning victory of the Monitor in Hampton Roads, which had opened the James to the gates of the Confederate Capital.