“And I do too.” The strong man’s eyes looked suspiciously moist.
“Poor girl! When she gave them to me last night she looked at them so long and wistfully, and I knew she was thinking about Ervin.”
“Sad, sad, Bessie; but his death was the death of a hero.”
“I know it, darling, but—a woman—a true woman—wants—a—a son of her love—and life is a mockery without it.”
Then they were silent for a moment, and each deep in thought, until Bessie said slowly, looking at the tiny garments before her:
“Jack, do you think that is what Jesus meant when He said He would go and prepare a place for us?”
He kissed her then, and said a soldier’s farewell, leaving her standing at the bedroom door. When he had descended the steps, Helen was still looking into the fire.
“Helen,” he said, “we owe you much already, but I want to ask another favor.”
“What is it, Jack?”
“Sherman is coming, and I am afraid he will burn Columbia. They say he is going to throw the Fifteenth Corps into the city—the corps that fills its tracks with blood and covers them with ashes. The prisoners we have taken all say so. Bessie is here alone. Will you protect her? Here,” he said, drawing from his pocket a small, ivory-handled pistol, “take this and promise me to do all to protect her, if she needs it. You may need it, too.” Then he walked out into the night and looked up to the window of the little room; Bessie was still standing with the candle in her left hand, looking lovingly down at the tiny garments spread out on the bed, and Helen was sitting in the room below, recalling the face of the past, letting the memories trip with light steps over her soul, and listening to the vibrating of the chords that had lain sore and silent for so long.