"They might not have been powerful enough—but it's sacred for another reason—as precious to me as the seamless robe for which the Roman soldiers cast lots on Calvary—I wore it in the one glorious moment in which I held you in my arms, dearest."
"O Ned, Boy, you shouldn't be so foolish!"
"I'm not. I'm sensible. I've done no more scout work since. I said that my life was yours and I had no right to place it again in such mad danger——"
"And so you face death on the field!"
"Yes, come sit here, dearest, I've made a seat for you of the broken timbers from the bridge. We can see the moonlit river and the lazy turn of the old wheel while we talk."
He led her to the seat in the edge of the moonlight and Betty drew a deep breath of joy as she drank in the beauty of the entrancing scene. The shadows of night had hidden the scars of war. Only the tall stone piers standing, lone sentinels in the river, marked its ravages where the bridge had fallen. The moon had flung her sparkling silver veil over the blood-stained world.
"You know," Ned went on eagerly, "those big pillars won't stand there naked long. We'll put the timbers back on them soon and run our trains through to Washington——"
"Sh, Ned," Betty whispered, touching his arm lightly, "be still a moment, I want to feel this wonderful scene!"
The air was sweet with the perfume of apple blossoms, the water from the old wheel fell with silvery echo and ran rippling over the stones into the river. Somewhere above the cliff a negro was playing a banjo and far down the river, beside a little cottage torn with shot and shell, but still standing, a mocking-bird was singing in the lilac bushes.
The girl looked at Ned with curious tenderness, and wondered if she had known her own heart after all—wondered if the fierce blinding passion she had once felt for his brother had been the divine thing that links the soul to the eternal? A strange spiritual beauty enveloped this younger man and drew her to-night with new power. There was something restful in its mystery. She wondered vaguely if it were possible to love two men at the same moment. She could almost swear it were. If she had never really loved John Vaughan at all! Why had his powerful, brutal personality drawn her with such terrible power? Was such a force love? It was something different from the tender charm which enveloped the slender straight young figure by her side now. She felt this with increasing certainty.