“Donald Rives!” the sad eyes, full of unspoken pity, not unmixed with regret, sought his.
“Truth,” said Donald. “And truth, Alice, is always best. The world, the sick moral world, cannot be healed with falsehood. But the woman sleeping there—she has a pretty story. Will you wait while I tell it—you are going away to-morrow.”
She glanced down the road, dim with the twilight.
“The others are gone on to Dan, to see the moon rise,” she said hesitatingly.
“We will follow them there in a moment,” said Donald. “I have a fancy for telling you that story.”
He laughed, a nervous, mirthless kind of laugh, and slipped his rifle to his other hand.
“She had a lover in the army, you understand. She was waiting here with hundreds of others until ‘the cruel war should cease.’ One day when there had been a great battle, a messenger came to Beersheba, bringing news for her. He brought a letter, and she came across the little court there at Beersheba, and received it from the messenger’s own hand. She tore it open and read the one line written there. Then the white page fluttered to the ground. She placed her hands upon her heart as if the bullet had pierced her. ‘Oh, Shiloh! Shiloh!’ That was all she said or did. The ball from old Shiloh did its work. The next day they buried her up there under the cedars. The letter had but one line: ‘Shot at Shiloh, fatally,’ and signed by the captain of the company who had promised to send news of the battle. Just a line; but enough to break a heart. Hearts break easily, sweetheart.”
She looked at him with her earnest eyes full of tears.
“Do you think hers broke?” she asked. “I do not. She merely went to him.”
“As I should go to you, if you were to die, because I cannot live without you.”