"Yes."
"And you can give me the whole day?"
"Every hour—the General is my friend."
The moment was too sweet to allow any shadow to cloud it. The girl yielded to its spell without reserve. They mounted and rode side by side over the hills. And the man poured into her ears the unspoken things he had felt and longed to say in the lonely nights of camp and field. The girl confessed the pain and the longing of her waiting.
They mounted the crest of a hill and the breeze from the southwest brought the sullen boom of a cannon.
Instinctively they drew rein.
"The battle has begun again," John said casually.
"It stirs your blood, doesn't it?" she whispered.
A frown darkened his brow:
"Not to-day."