And at length Colonel Arran arose to take his departure; and she had not told what was hammering for utterance in every heart beat; she did not know how to tell, what to ask.
Hat in hand Colonel Arran bent over her hot little hand where it lay in his own.
"I have been offered the colonelcy of a volunteer regiment now forming," he said without apparent interest.
"You!"
"Cavalry," he explained wearily.
"But—you have not accepted!"
He gave her an absent glance. "Yes, I have accepted. . . . I am going to Washington to-night."
"Oh!" she breathed, "but you are coming back before—before——"
"Yes, child. Cavalry is not made in a hurry. I am to see General Scott—perhaps Mr. Cameron and the President. . . . If, in my absence—" he hesitated, looked down, shook his head. And somehow she seemed to know that what he had not said concerned Berkley.
Neither of them mentioned him. But after Colonel Arran had gone she went slowly to her room, sat down at her desk, sat there a long, long while thinking. But it was after midnight before she wrote to Berkley: