“Yes, Arthur, it was a mistake, oh Arthur, oh Maude, and you two were engaged. I did not know it before.”
Then a bright flush crept into Maude’s white face, for she knew the tall shadow on the grass beside her belonged to Capt. Carleton, and he, she guessed, was thinking of last night in the cave. He did think of it, but only for a moment, and then his thoughts were merged in his great anxiety for Lieutenant Arthur, who he saw was dying. Arthur knew he was there, and smiled when he asked if he felt much pain.
“None with Maude beside me. She was to have been my wife, wern’t you, Maude?”
“Yes, Arthur. I was to have been your wife.”
She spoke it openly, frankly, as if by so doing she was seeking to atone for an error, and the eyes lifted to Tom’s face had in them something defiant, as if she would say “I mean it. I would have been his wife.”
But she met only pity in Tom’s looks—pity for her, and pity for the young man dying among the mountains on that soft, summer morning, when the whole world seemed so at variance with a death like that. It was a strange scene, and one which those who witnessed it never could forget. The broad, level plat on the mountain side, the mounted horsemen, the group of prisoners, the beautiful, queenly girl, whose lap pillowed the head of the dying soldier, while her brilliant eyes wept floods of tears which, with quick, nervous movements of her fingers, she swept away. Beside her was Charlie, his face whiter than that of the dying man, and his muscles working painfully as if he was forcing back some terrible pang or cry of agony. Tom Carleton, too, and Paul Haverill, who had later joined the group and stood looking sadly on, while toward the south the smoke and flame of his own house was ascending, and in the east the early morning was bright and fresh with the summer’s golden sunshine. And there on the mountain side they waited and watched, while the young lieutenant talked faintly of his distant home where the news would carry so much sorrow.
“Tell father I died believing in our cause, and were I to live my life over I should join the Southern army; but it’s wrong about the prisoners. We ought not to abuse those who fall into our hands. I’ve loved you Maude, so long. Remember me when I am gone, not for anything brilliant there was about me, but because I loved you so well, and died in carrying out the work you gave me to do.”
“Oh, Arthur! Arthur! speak some word of comfort to me or I shall surely die. It was a mistake,” Charlie whispered, as he crept close to Arthur’s side.
The dying man’s eyes rested inquiringly for a moment in Charlie’s face, then lighted up with a sudden joy.
“Charlie! Charlie! come close,” he whispered. “Bend your ear to my lips. Maude must not hear me.”