Jennie hastily packed her trunk and left on the first train for the South. She must reach her helpless grandmother before the Federal army could attack Baton Rouge.
The tenderness with which Socola helped her on board the train had brought the one ray of sunlight into her heart. She had expected to go in tears and terror for what the future held in store in the stricken world at home.
A smile on the lips of a stranger had set her heart to beating with joy.
She was ashamed of herself for being so happy. But it was impossible to make her heart stop beating and laughing. He had not yet spoken a word of love but she knew. She knew with a knowledge sweet and perfect because she had suddenly realized her own secret. She might have gone on for months in Richmond without knowing that she cared any more for him than for a dozen other boys who were as attentive. In this hour of parting it had come in a blinding flash as he bent over her hand to say good-by. It made no difference when he should speak. Love had come into her own heart full, wonderful, joyous, maddening in its glory. She could wait in silence until in the fullness of time he must speak. It was enough to know that she loved.
"May I write to you occasionally, Miss Jennie?" he asked with a timid, hesitating look.
She laughed.
"Of course, you must write and tell me everything that happens here."
Socola wondered why she laughed. It was disconcerting. He hadn't faced the question of loving Jennie. She was just a charming, beautiful child whose acquaintance he could use for great ends. His depression came from the tremendous nerve strain of his work. The early movement of McClellan's army had kept him in that darkened attic on Church Hill continuously every hour of the past night. He was feeling the strain. He would throw it off when he got a good night's rest.
It was not until twenty-four hours after Jennie's departure that he waked with a dull ache in his heart that refused to go. And so while he dragged himself about his task with a sense of sickening loneliness, a girl was softly singing in the far South.