In the autumn, Colonel Taylor again sent his Lieutenant on a distant duty—this time one of peculiar danger. He was ordered to Louisville and Lexington on recruiting service. And the cholera was known to be epidemic but a few miles from Lexington.
The good-by scene that night at the lovers' trysting place, the little tent reception-room of the McCreas', was long and tender and solemn.
"Oh, I feel dreadful about this trip, dear," his sweetheart kept repeating with pitiful despair that refused to be comforted.
"You must be brave, my own," he answered with a frown. "A soldier's business is to die. I am a soldier. I go where duty calls—"
"To battle—yes—but this black pestilence that comes in the night—I'm afraid—I just can't help it—I'm afraid. I've always had a horror of such things. I've a presentiment that you'll die that way—"
"Presentiments and dreams go by opposites. I'll live to a ripe old age—"
She looked up into his face with a tender smile:
"You think so?"
"Yes, why not?"