Was he thinking of the Virginian whose life would die out for ever, with the fading of those stars, or of the woman whom he had lost, whose love was the doomed soldier's, and would never be his own, though the grave closed over his rival with the morrow's sun? Dreamily, half unconsciously, in the excitement of fever, I asked him of her of whom I knew nothing:
"Did you love that woman so well?"
His eyes were still fixed on the distant darkening skies, and he answered quietly, as though rather to his own thoughts than my words,—"Yes: I love her—as I never loved in that old life in England; as we never love but once, I think."
"And she?"
"And she—has but one thought in the world—him."
His voice, as he answered, now grated with dull, dragging misery over the words.
"Had she so much beauty that she touched you like this?"
He smiled slightly, a faint, mournful smile, unutterably sad.
"Yes; she is very lovely, but her beauty is the least rare charm. She is a woman for whom a man would live his greatest, and if he cannot live for her—may—die."
The utterance was very slow, and seemed to lie on me like a hand on my lips compelling me to silence; he had forgotten all, except his memory of her, and where he sat with his eyes fixed outward on the drifting clouds that floated across the stars, I saw his lips quiver once, and I heard him murmur half aloud: "My darling! My darling! You will know how I loved you then——"