A strange suspicion clouded my heart, and with an intuition of the truth, I felt that I could single out the demon who had spread destruction in this home.
But with the suavity of deceit, he subtly turned aside the tide of censure, so justly his due, and the world even forgave him for the duel; for strange travestied stories floated through the city. Who gave them to the public? I felt, I knew that Henry Elsdon had only added to the infamy which weighed upon his soul; but as yet the avenger had not struck, the race of hell had not been accomplished! ...
It was the exciting winter of '60 — December, 1860! South Carolina had torn herself from her sisters, and Washington was in a ferment. Crowds congregated at the hotels to watch the opening of a season fraught with destiny. Men with reckless, evil passions increased the excitement; for cognac burned and whiskey infuriated, and the whole mass of humanity seemed consumed by the one madness, mutual hate!
It was the evening of the 27th of December. The telegraph had spread the news of Anderson's evacuation of Fort Moultrie, and the agitation was culminating in effort. There is a season when enthusiasm pulses, till the wild madness intoxicates all feeling; then some sudden crowding on of events drives the fierce current into action, and the mighty mass heaves and surges with one will, one heart, for the conflict; and so it was to night. I stood on the corner of Pennsylvania avenue and Seventh street, watching the changing faces which the gas-light flared upon, when a woman's voice in wild terror startled me. "In the name of the cross, forbear!" she cried. And I turned to see a face pale with fear and horror. In an instant I was beside her; she held the cross of her rosary toward the man who had dared, not only to insult a woman, but one of God's ministering angels, those pure spirits of comfort, the Sisters of Mercy.
I struck the brute from her, but not without recognizing the features, even though inflamed and distorted by liquor. She almost fainted in my arms, but I placed her in my sister's carriage, just then passing, and ordered it to drive to the address which she gave.
What there was in the tones of that woman's voice I could not explain to myself; but a sad chord vibrated till the echoes waked in my heart feelings that I thought were sleeping quietly in a jealously guarded grave of the past. ...
Four years had gone by since that night, and the war that shook this continent had closed; ended were the years that had brought their holocaust, the proof of the calibre of the men who had died on the field of honor.
Grant's triumphant legions garrisoned the Confederate capital, and I was appointed surgeon in charge of —— Hospital, where the sick and wounded of both armies were tended by the Sisters of Mercy.
The intense heat of those early summer days I can never forget, and the poor fellows in blue and gray tossed from side to side on the narrow cots in the fever wards. It was my night in —— Hospital, for I was appointed to relieve Dr. ——, and I observed a "sister" bending over a patient whose white face and faint voice told me that his hours were numbered.
"Sister Mary," said the feeble tones, "will you bathe my temples? they burn and throb as fiercely as my own heart. Sister, can a vile wretch ask you to stand near when he is dying? Sister, you who are pure and holy, tell me if God will pardon me?"