“Indeed I shall not permit it. So many have assured me it would be perfectly safe that I do not mean to worry. I expect to be very happy there until the war is over. Surely, Captain Wayne, it cannot long continue now?”
Her voice was low, earnest, almost supplicating.
“It looks hopeless, even from our standpoint, I admit,” I returned, watching the straying sunlight play amid the dusky coils of her hair. “Yet we are not likely to yield until we must.”
“But you, Captain Wayne; surely you have already risked enough?”
“I presume I am a prisoner,” I answered, smiling, “and therefore unable at present to choose my future; but were I free to do so, I should return to my command to-morrow.”
“Yet surely you do not consider that this terrible rebellion is justified, is right?”
“I think there is, undoubtedly, much wrong upon both sides, Mrs. Brennan; but I am a soldier, and my duty is very simple—I follow my flag and, as a Virginian, am loyal to my State and to the principles taught me in my childhood.”
Her beautiful eyes filled with tears, and as she bent down her head that the others might not perceive her agitation, one salty drop fell upon my hand.
“It is all so very, very sad,” she said softly.
“There is much suffering upon both sides, but surely even you would not wish me to be other than true to what I look upon as a duty?”