Edward came that night and plead with her. She could go to Kingston on the cars and thence to Rome to the westward, out of the region of danger—
“Edward,” she said, “haven’t I been a good campaigner?”
“The best—”
“Then, when you can do a thing well, why do something else poorly? This is the way I am going to live, and when you wed me you wed my way of life.”
“If harm came to you, Désirée—”
“And I might say, ‘If harm came to you, Edward,’—I know that harm may come to you, but—I don’t say it, and you must not say it either. With you is my home, my Cape Jessamine, and I am not going to leave it.”
“With you is my home, my Cape Jessamine—and all the gods know I love you here—”
“I am not going to Rome. Let us walk a little, in the moonlight.”
The next day came in from Savannah Mercer’s brigade of fourteen hundred. On the third the scouts reported a great force of the enemy at Ringgold. On this day, too, the cavalry pickets were driven in along the Cleveland road. On the fifth the great blue host formed in line of battle near Tunnel Hill. Over against them were drawn the grey. The fifth and the sixth were days of skirmishing, of reconnoissance, of putting forth fingers and drawing them back. In the first light of the seventh, under a wonderful sunrise sky, the blue army began a general advance.