She knelt down beside him with a low, bitter cry. It reached his dulled sense; he rose feebly.
'Forgive me; I have not been myself of late, I think; and this—this was so sudden,' and he walked away with dull, nerveless tread.
On the table, near her, lay her handkerchief. It breathed of heliotrope. Her words came back to him: 'Only in coffins, about still, dead faces.' He stopped in his walk and looked down on her. Forever he should remember all that ghostly sheen of silvery white about a rigid face with unutterably sad fixed mouth and drooping lids. He thrust the fleecy handful into his breast.
'I may keep this?' and took permission from her silence.
'Good-by;' the words came through ashy lips, a half sob. She knelt as impassive as marble, as cold and white. He waited a moment for the word or look that did not come, turned away, the hall door fell heavily shut, and he was gone.
Fifteen minutes after, Miss Berkeley was whirling to the house where she was to officiate as bridesmaid, and where she was haughtier, and colder, and ten times more attractive than ever.
Private Moore, waiting for the midnight return train, found life a grim prospect.
Three weeks after, a summons came from the captain's tent. George had just returned from his own furlough, and this was their first meeting. Even while their hands clasped, his new, happy secret told itself.
'Congratulate me, Clement Moore! You remember Lois Berkeley? She has promised to be Lois Berkeley Morris one day!' and, with happy lover's egotism, did not notice the gray shade about his hearer's lips.
Various items of news followed.