For an hour she sat there, silent. Behind her, leaning heavily on the table, he crouched, hot eyes wide, pulse heavy in throat and body. And at last, without turning, she called to him—three times, very gently, speaking his name; and at the third call he rose and came stumbling toward her.
“Sit here.”
He sank down beside her on the sill.
“Are you very tired?”
“Yes.”
She placed one arm around him, drawing his hot head down on her shoulder.
“How foolish you have been,” she whispered. “But, of course, your mother must not know it.... There is no reason to tell her—ever.... Because you went quite mad for a little while—and nobody is blamed for mental sickness.... How bright the stars are.... What a heavenly coolness after that dreadful work.... How feverish you are! I think that your regiment believes you roamed away while suffering from sunstroke.... Their Colonel is a good friend of mine. Tell him you’re sorry.”
His head lay heavily on her shoulder; she laid a fresh hand over his eyes.
“If the South is right, if we of the North are right, God knows better than you or I, Roy.... And if you are so bewildered that you have no deep conviction either way I think you may trust Him who set you among Kay’s Cavalry.... God never betrayed a human soul in honest doubt.”
“It—it was the flag!—that was the hardest to get over—” he began, and choked, smothering the dry sob against her breast.