Some such reflection occupied Leila Grey's mind as she rode away. Many of the officers now in one of the two armies had dined or stayed a few pleasant days at Grey Pine. For one of them, Robert Lee, Penhallow had a warm regard. She remembered too General Scott, a Virginian, and her aunt's Southern friend Drayton, the man whom a poet has since described when with Farragut as "courtly, gallant and wise." "Ah, me!" she murmured, "duty must be at times a costly luxury.—A costly necessity," she concluded, was better—that left no privilege of choice. She smiled, dismissing the mental problem, and rode on full of anxiety for those she loved and her unfortunate country. Our most profound emotions are for the greater souls dumb and have no language if it be not that of prayer, or the tearful overflow which means so much and is so mysteriously helpful. She found both forms of expression when she knelt that night.
In the afternoon the refreshing upland coolness of evening followed on the humid heat of a hot June day. Towards sunset Ann Penhallow, to her niece's surprise, drew on her shawl and said she would like to walk down to the little river. Any proposal to break the routine of a life unwholesome in its monotony was agreeable to Leila. No talk of the war was possible. When Ann Penhallow now more and more rarely and with effort went on her too frequently needed errands of relief or consolation, the village people understood her silence about the war, and accepting her bounty somewhat resented an attitude of mind which forbade the pleasant old familiarity of approach.
The life was unhealthy for Leila, and McGregor watched its influence with affection and some professional apprehension. Glad of any change, Leila walked with her aunt through the garden among the roses in which now her aunt took no interest. They heard the catbirds carolling in the hedges, and Ann thought of the day a year ago when she listened to them with James Penhallow at her side. They reached in silence an open space above the broad quiet backwater. Beyond a low beach the river flowed by, wide and smooth, a swift stream. From the western side the sunset light fell in widening shafts of scarlet across the water.
"Let us sit here," said the elder woman. "I am too weak to walk further"—for her a strange confession. As they sat down on the mossy carpet, Leila caught the passive hand of her aunt.
"I suppose you still swim here, every morning, Leila? I used to like it—I have now no heart for anything."
Leila could only say, "Why not, aunt?"
"How can you ask me! I think—I dream of nothing but this unnatural war."
"Is that wise, aunt? or as Dr. McGregor would say, 'wholesome'?"
"It is not; but I cannot help it—it darkens my whole life. Billy was up at the house this morning talking in his wild way. I did not even try to understand, but"—and she hesitated—"I suppose I had better know."
This was strange to Leila, who too hesitated, and then concluding to be frank returned, "It might have been better, aunt, if you had known all along what was going on—"