He hallooed to him, bidding him "hap up an' come along till see what the Yankees were about.—Go in, Dode,—you sha'n't be worrit, child."
Gaunt came closer, fastening his thin coat. A lean face, sharpened by other conflicts than disease,—poetic, lonesome eyes, not manly.
"I am going," he said, looking at the girl. All the pain and struggle of years came up in that look. She knew where he was going: did she care? he thought She knew,—he had told her, not an hour since, that he meant to lay down the Bible, and bring the kingdom of Jesus nearer in another fashion: he was going to enlist in the Federal army. It was God's cause, holy: through its success the golden year of the world would begin on earth. Gaunt took up his sword, with his eye looking awe-struck straight to God. The pillar of cloud, he thought, moved, as in the old time, before the army of freedom. She knew that when he did this, for truth's sake, he put a gulf between himself and her forever. Did she care? Did she? Would she let him go, and make no sign?
"Be quick, Gaunt," said Scofield, impatiently. "Bone hearn tell that Dougl's Palmer was in Romney to-night. He'll be down at Blue's Gap, I reckon. He's captain now in the Lincolnite army,—one of the hottest of the hell-hounds,—he is! Ef he comes to the house here, as he'll likely do, I don't want till meet him."
Gaunt stood silent.
"He was Geordy's friend, father," said the girl, gulping back something in her throat.
"Geordy? Yes. I know. It's that that hurts me," he muttered, uncertainly. "Him an' Dougl's was like brothers once, they was!"
He coughed, lit his pipe, looking in the girl's face for a long time, anxiously, as if to find a likeness in it to some other face he never should see again. He often had done this lately. At last, stooping, he kissed her mouth passionately, and shuffled down the hill, trying to whistle as be went. Kissing, through her, the boy who lay dead at Manassas: she knew that. She leaned on the railing, looking after him until a bend in the road took him out of sight. Then she turned into the house, with no thought to spare for the man watching her all this while with hungry eyes. The moon, drifting from behind a cloud, threw a sharp light on her figure, as she stood in the door-way.
"Dode!" he said. "Good bye, Dode!"
She shook hands, saying nothing,—then went in, and shut the door.