“Be at the door if you wish, little cousin. I should like that, but go no further.” He arose and held out his hands. “It’s good-bye now, Peggy.”
A sense of suffocation overwhelmed Peggy, and she could not speak. He was so young, so noble, so manly in meeting his untoward fate, and yet he must suffer this ignominious death without the comfort of a friend’s face near him. As she found her way blindly out of the room a passionate prayer rose insistently through all her being:
“Oh, that father would come! That father would come!”
CHAPTER XXIX
IN THE SHADOW OF DEATH
“... A darker departure is near,
The death-drum is muffled, and sable the bier.”
—Campbell.
The beautiful sunset retreat was sounding its inspiring notes as Peggy left the guard-house, and slowly made her way across the parade-ground. There was a note of pathos in the strain which seemed peculiarly impressive, and all at once Clifford’s words came back to her: