Half an hour is a short or a long time, depending upon the individual mood or the exigencies of the moment. It was a short half hour to Captain Thorne—to continue to give him the name by which he was commonly known—out in the moonlight and the rose garden with Edith Varney. It was short to him because he loved her and because he realised that in that brief space must be packed experience enough to last him into the long future, it might be into the eternal future!

It was short to Edith Varney, in part at least for the same reason, but it was shorter to him than to her, for at the end of that period the guilt or innocence of the man she loved and who loved her would be established beyond peradventure; either he was the brave, devoted, self-sacrificing Confederate soldier she thought him, or he was a spy; and since he came of a Virginia family, although West Virginia had separated from the Old Dominion, she coupled the word spy with that of traitor. Either or both would be enough to condemn him. Fighting against suspicion, she would fain have postponed the moment of revelation, of decision, therefore too quickly passed the flying moments.

It was a short half hour to Thorne, because he might see her no more. It was a short half hour again to Edith because she might see him no more, and it might be possible that she could not even allow herself to dream upon him in his absence in the future. The recollection of the woman would ever be sweet and sacred to the man, but it might be necessary for the woman to blot out utterly the remembrance of the man.

It was a short half hour to young Wilfred in his own room, waiting impatiently for old Martha to bring him the altered uniform, over which Caroline was busily working in the large old-fashioned kitchen. She had chosen that odd haven of refuge because there she was the least likely to be interrupted and could pursue her task without fear of observation by any other eyes than those of old Martha. The household had been reduced to its smallest limit and the younger maids who were still retained in the establishment had been summarily dismissed to their quarters for the night by the old mammy.

Now that Wilfred had taken the plunge, his impatience to go was at fever heat. He could not wait, he felt, for another moment. He had spent some of his half hour in composing a letter with great care. It was a short letter and therefore was soon finished, and he was now pacing up and down his room with uneasy steps waiting for old Martha’s welcome voice.

It was a long half hour for little Caroline Mitford, busily sewing away in the kitchen. It seemed to her that she was taking forever to turn up the bottoms of the trouser legs and make a “hem” on each, as she expressed it. She was not very skilful at such rough needlework and her eyes were not so very clear as she played at tailoring. This is no reflection upon their natural clarity and brightness, but they were quite often dimmed with tears, which once or twice brimmed over and dropped upon the coarse fabric of the garment upon which she worked. She had known the man who had worn them last, he had been a friend of hers, and she knew the boy who was going to wear them next.

If she could translate the emotions of her girlish heart, the new wearer was more than a friend. Was the same fate awaiting the latter that the former had met?

The half hour was very long to Jonas, the old butler, trembling with fright, suffering from his rough usage and terror-stricken with anticipation of the further punishment that awaited him.

The half hour was longest of all to Mrs. Varney. After her visit to Howard, who had enjoyed one of his lucid moments and who seemed to be a little better, she had come down to the drawing-room, at Mr. Arrelsford’s suggestion, to see that no one from the house who might have observed, or divined, or learned, in any way what was going on within should go out into the garden and disturb the young couple, or give an alarm to the man who was the object of so much interest and suspicion, so much love and hatred.

About the only people who took no note of the time were the busy sempstresses in the room across the hall, and the first sign of life came from that room. Miss Kittridge, who appeared to have been constituted the messenger of the workers, came out of the room, went down the hall to the back of the house, and presently entered the drawing-room, by the far door.

“Well,” she began, seeing Mrs. Varney, “we have just sent off another batch of bandages.”

“Did the same man come for them?” asked the mistress of the house.

“No, they sent another one.”

“Did you have much?”

“Yes, quite a lot. We have all been at the bandages, they say that that is what they need most. So long as we have any linen left we will work at it.” She turned to go away, but something in the elder woman’s face and manner awakened a slight suspicion in her mind. She stopped, turned, and came back. “You look troubled, Mrs. Varney,” she began. “Do you want anything?”

“No, nothing, thank you.”

“Is there anything I can do or anything any of us can do?”

“Not a thing, my dear,” answered Mrs. Varney, trying to smile and failing dismally.

“Is it Howard?” persisted the other, anxious to be of service.

“He seems to be a little better,” returned the woman.

“I am glad to hear it, and if there is anything any of us could do for you, you would certainly tell me.”

The elder woman nodded and Miss Kittridge turned decisively away and stepped briskly toward the door. On second thought, there was something she could do, reflected Mrs. Varney, and so she rose, stepped to the door in turn, and called her back.

“Perhaps it would be just as well,” she said, “if any of the ladies want to go to let them out the other way. You can open the door into the back hall. We’re expecting some one here on important business, you know, and we——”

“I understand,” said Miss Kittridge.

“And you will see to this?”

“Certainly; trust me.”

“Thank you.”

Mrs. Varney turned with a little sigh of relief and went back to her place by the table, where her work basket sat near to hand. No woman in Richmond was without a work basket with work in it for any length of time during those days. The needle was second only to the bayonet in the support of the dying Confederacy! She glanced at it, but, sure evidence of the tremendous strain under which she laboured, she made no motion to take it up. Instead, after a moment of reflection, she crossed to the wall and pulled the bell rope. In a short time, considering her bulk and unwieldiness, old Martha appeared at the far door.

“Did you ring, ma’am?” she asked.

“Yes,” was the answer. “Has Miss Caroline gone yet?”

“No, ma’am,” answered Martha, smilingly displaying a glorious set of white teeth. “She’s been out in de kitchen fo’ a w’ile.”

“In the kitchen?”

“Yas’m. Ah took her out dere. She didn’t want to be seed by no one.”

“And what is she doing there?”

“She’s been mostly sewin’ an’ behabin’ mighty strange about sumfin a gret deal ob de time. She’s a-snifflin’ an’ a-weepin’, but Ah belieb she’s gittin’ ready to gwine home now.”

“Very well,” said Mrs. Varney, “will you please ask her to come in here a moment before she goes.”

“Yas’m, ’deed Ah will,” said old Martha, turning and going out of the door through which, presently, Caroline herself appeared.

She looked very demure and the air of innocence, partly natural but largely assumed, well became her although it did not deceive Mrs. Varney for a moment, or would not have deceived her if she had had any special interest in Caroline’s actions or emotions. The greater strain under which she laboured made the girl of small moment; she would simply use her, that was all.

“Caroline, dear,” she began immediately, “are you in a great hurry to go home?”

“No, ma’am, not particularly, especially if I can do anything for you here,” answered the girl readily, somewhat surprised.

“It happens that you can,” said Mrs. Varney; “if you can stay here a few minutes while I go upstairs to Howard it will be a great help to me.”

“You want me just to wait here, is that it?” asked the girl, somewhat mystified.

Why on earth anybody should be required to wait in a vacant room was something which Caroline could not understand, but Mrs. Varney’s next words sought to explain it.

“I don’t want you merely to wait here but—well, in fact, I don’t want anybody to go out on the veranda, or into the garden, from the front of the house, under any circumstances.”

Caroline’s eyes opened in great amazement. She did not in the least understand what it was all about until Mrs. Varney explained further.

“You see Edith’s there with——”

“Oh, yes,” laughed the girl, at last, as she thought, comprehending, “you want them to be left alone. I know how that is, whenever I am—when some—that is of course I will see to it,” she ended rather lamely and in great confusion.

“Just a few minutes, dear,” said Mrs. Varney, smiling faintly at the girl’s blushing cheeks and not thinking it worth while to correct the misapprehension, “I won’t be long.” She stepped across the room, but turned in the doorway for her final injunction, “Do be careful, won’t you?”

“Careful!” said Caroline to herself, “I should think I would be careful. As if I didn’t know enough for that. I can guess what is going on out there in the moonlight. I wouldn’t have them disturbed for the world. Why, if I were out there with—with—Wil—with anybody, I wouldn’t——”

She stopped in great dismay at her own admissions and stood staring toward the front windows, over which Mrs. Varney had most carefully drawn the heavy hangings.

Presently her curiosity got the better of her sense of propriety. She went to the nearest window, pulled the curtains apart a little, and peered eagerly out. She saw nothing, nothing but the trees in the moonlight, that is; Edith and Captain Thorne were not within view nor were they within earshot. She turned to the other window. Now that she had made the plunge, she determined to see what was going on if she could. She drew the couch up before the window and knelt down upon it, and parting the curtains, looked out, but with the same results as before. In this questionable position she was unfortunately caught by Wilfred Varney.

He was dressed in the grey jacket and the trousers which she had repaired. She had not made a skilful job of her tailoring but it would serve. The whole suit was worn, ill-fitting, and soiled; but it was whole. That was more than could be said of ninety-nine per cent. of the uniforms commonly seen round about Richmond. Measured by these, Wilfred was sumptuously, even luxuriously, dressed, and the pride expressed in his port and bearing was as complete as it was naÏve. He walked softly up the long room, intending to surprise the girl, but boy-like, he stumbled over a stool on his way forward, and the young lady turned about quickly and confronted him with an exclamation. Wilfred came close to her and spoke in a low, fierce whisper.

“Mother isn’t anywhere about, is she?”

“No,” said Caroline in the same tone, “she’s just gone upstairs to see Howard, but she is coming back in a few minutes, she said.”

“Well,” returned Wilfred, throwing his chest out impressively, “I am not running away from her, but if she saw me with these on she might feel funny.”

“I don’t think,” returned Caroline quickly, “that she would feel very funny.”

“Well, you know what I mean,” said Wilfred, flushing a little. “You know how it is with a fellow’s mother.”

Caroline nodded gravely.

“Yes, I have learned how it is with mothers,” she said, thinking of the mothers she had known since the war began, young though she was.

“Other people don’t care,” said Wilfred, “but mothers are different.”

“Some other people don’t care,” answered Caroline softly, fighting hard to keep back a rush of tears.

In spite of herself her eyes would focus themselves upon that little round blood-stained hole in the left breast of the jacket. She had not realised before how straight that bullet had gone to the heart of the other wearer. There was something terribly ominous about it. But Wilfred blundered blindly on, unconscious of this emotion or of its cause. He drew from the pocket in his blouse a paper. He sat down at the table, beckoning Caroline as he did so. The girl came closer and looked over his shoulder as he unfolded the paper.

“I have written that letter,” he said, “to the General, my father, that is. Here it is. I have got to send it to him in some way. It is all written but the last words and I am not sure about them. I’m not going to say ‘your loving son’ or anything of that kind. This is a man’s letter, a soldier’s letter. I love him, of course, but this is not the time or the place to put that sort of a thing in. I have been telling him——” He happened to glance up as he spoke and discovered to his great surprise that Caroline had turned away from him and was no longer looking at him. “Why, what’s the matter?” he exclaimed.

“Nothing, nothing,” answered the girl, forcing herself to face him once more.

“I thought you wanted to help me,” he continued.

“Oh, yes! I do, I do.”

“Well, you can’t help me way off there,” said Wilfred. “Come closer.”

He spoke like a soldier already, thought the girl, but she meekly, for her, obeyed the imperious command. He stared at her, as yet unconscious but strangely agitated nevertheless. The silence was soon insupportable, and Caroline herself broke it.

“The—the——” she pointed at the trousers, “are they how you wanted them?”

“Fine,” replied Wilfred; “they are just perfect. There isn’t a girl in Richmond who could have done them better. Now about the letter. I want your advice on it; what do you think?”

“Tell me what you said.”

“You want to hear it?” asked Wilfred.

“I’ve got to, haven’t I? How could I help you if I didn’t know what it was all about?”

“You’re a pretty good girl, Caroline. You will help me, won’t you?”

Her hand rested on the table as she bent over him, and he laid his own hand upon it and squeezed it warmly, too warmly thought Caroline, as she slowly drew it away and was sorry she did it the moment she had done so.

“Yes, I will help you,” she said. “But about the letter? You will have to hurry. I am sure your mother will be here in a short time.”

“Well, that letter is mighty important, you know. Everything depends upon it, much more than on mother’s letter, I am sure.”

“I should think so,” said the girl.

She drew a chair up to the table and sat down by the side of the boy.

“I am just going to give it to him strong,” said Wilfred.

“That’s the way to give it to him,” said Caroline. “He’s a soldier and he’s accustomed to such things.”

“You can’t fool much with father. He means business,” said Wilfred; “but he will find that I mean business, too.”

“That’s right,” assented Caroline sapiently, “everybody has got to mean business now. What did you say to him?”

“I said this,” answered the youngster, reading slowly and with great pride, “‘General Ransom Varney, Commanding Division, Army of Northern Virginia, Dear Papa’——”

“I wouldn’t say ‘dear papa’ to a General,” interrupted Caroline decisively.

“No? What would you say?”

“I would say ‘Sir,’ of course; that is much more businesslike and soldiers are always so awfully abrupt.”

“You are right,” said the boy, beginning again, “‘General Ransom Varney, Commanding Division, Army of Northern Virginia, Sir’—that sounds fine, doesn’t it?”

“Splendid,” said the girl, “go on.”

“‘This is to notify you that I want you to let me join the Army right now. If you don’t, I will enlist anyway, that’s all. The seventeen call is out and I am not going to wait for the sixteen. Do you think I am a damned coward’——”

Wilfred paused and looked apprehensively at Caroline, who nodded with eyes sparkling brightly.

“That’s fine,” she said.

“I thought it sounded like a soldier.”

“It does; you ought to have heard the Third Virginia swear——”

“Oh,” said Wilfred, who did not quite relish that experience; but he went on after a little pause. “‘Tom Kittridge has gone; he was killed yesterday at Cold Harbor. Billie Fisher has gone and so has Cousin Stephen. He is not sixteen, he lied about his age, but I don’t want to do that unless you make me. I will, though, if you do. Answer this right now or not at all.’”

“I think that is the finest letter I have ever heard,” said Caroline proudly, as Wilfred stopped, laid the paper down, and stared at her.

“Do you really think so?”

“It is the best letter I——”

“I am glad you are pleased with it. Now the next thing is how to end it.”

“Why, just end it.”

“But how?”

“Sign your name, of course.”

“Nothing else?”

“What else is there?”

“Just Wilfred?”

“No, Wilfred Varney.”

“That’s the thing.” He took up a pen from the table and scrawled his name at the bottom of this interesting and historical document. “And you think the rest of it will do?”

“I should think it would,” she assented heartily. “I wish your father had it now.”

“So do I,” said Wilfred. “Maybe it will take two or three days to get it to him and I just can’t wait that long.”

Caroline rose to her feet suddenly under the stimulus of a bright idea that came into her mind.

“I tell you what we can do.”

“What?”

“We can telegraph him,” she exclaimed.

“Good idea,” cried Wilfred, more and more impressed with Caroline’s wonderful resourcefulness, but a disquieting thought immediately struck him. “Where am I going to get the money?” he asked dubiously.

“It won’t take very much.”

“It won’t? Do you know what they are charging now? Over seven dollars a word only to Petersburg.”

“Well, let them charge it,” said Caroline calmly, “we can cut it down to only a few words and the address won’t cost anything.”

“Won’t it?”

“No, they never charge for that,” continued the girl. “That’s a heap of money saved, and then we can use what we save on the address for the rest.”

Wilfred stared at her as if this problem in economics was not quite clear to his youthful brain, but she gave him no time to question her ingenious calculations.

“What comes after the address?” she asked in her most businesslike manner.

“‘Sir.’”

“Leave that out.”

Wilfred swept his pen through it.

“He knows it already,” said Caroline. “What’s next?”

“‘This is to notify you that I want you to let me come right now.’”

“We could leave out that last ‘to,’” said Caroline.

Wilfred checked it off, and then read, “‘I want you—let me come right now.’ That doesn’t sound right, and anyway it is such a little word.”

“Yes, but it costs seven dollars just the same as a big word,” observed Caroline.

“But it doesn’t sound right without it,” argued the boy; “we have got to leave it in. What comes after that?”

Caroline in turn took up the note and read,

“‘If you don’t, I’ll come anyhow, that’s all.’”

“You might leave out ‘that’s all,’” said Wilfred.

“No, don’t leave that out. It’s very important. It doesn’t seem to be so important, but it is. It shows—well—it shows that that’s all there is about it. That one thing might convince him.”

“Yes, but we’ve got to leave out something.”

“Not that, though. Perhaps there is something else. ‘The seventeen call is out’—that’s got to stay.”

“Yes,” said Wilfred.

“‘The sixteen comes next.’ That’s just got to stay.”

“Of course. Now, what follows?”

“‘I’m not going to wait for it,’” read Caroline.

“We can’t cut that out,” said Wilfred; “we don’t seem to be making much progress, do we?”

“Well, we will find something in a moment. ‘Do you think I am’——” she hesitated a moment, “‘a damned coward,’” she read with a delicious thrill at her rash, vicarious wickedness.

Wilfred regarded her dubiously. He felt as an author does when he sees his pet periods marked out by the blue pencil of the ruthless editor.

“You might leave that out,” he began, cutting valiantly at his most cherished and admired phrase.

“No,” protested Caroline vehemently, “certainly not! That is the best thing in the whole letter.”

“That ‘damn’ is going to cost us seven dollars, you know.”

“It is worth it,” said Caroline, “it is the best thing you have written. Your father is a General in the army, he’ll understand that kind of language. What’s next? I know there’s something now.”

“‘Tom Kittridge has gone. He was killed yesterday at Cold Harbor.’”

“Leave out that about”—she caught her breath, and her eyes fixed themselves once more on that little round hole in the breast of his jacket—“about his being killed.”

“But he was killed and so was Johnny Sheldon—I have his uniform, you know.”

“I know he was, but you don’t have to tell your father,” said Caroline, choking up, “you don’t have to telegraph him the news, do you?”

“No, of course not, but——”

“That’s all there is to the letter except the end.”

“Why, that leaves it just the same except the part about——”

“Yes,” said Caroline in despair, “and after all the work we have done.”

“Let’s try it again,” said Wilfred.

“No,” said Caroline, “there is no use. Everything else has got to stay.”

“Well, then we can’t telegraph it. It would cost hundreds of dollars.”

“Yes, we can telegraph it,” said Caroline determinedly, “you give it to me. I’ll get it sent.”

“But how are you going to send it?” asked Wilfred, extending the letter.

“Never you mind,” answered the girl.

“See here!” the boy cried. “I am not going to have you spend your money, and——”

“There’s no danger of that, I haven’t any to spend.” She took the letter from his hand. “I reckon Douglass Foray’ll send it for me. He’s in the telegraph office and he’ll do most anything for me.”

“No,” said Wilfred sternly.

“What’s the reason he won’t?” asked the girl.

“Because he won’t.”

“What do you care so long as he sends it?”

“Well, I do care and that’s enough. I’m not going to have you making eyes at Dug Foray on my account.”

“Oh, well,” said the girl, blushing. “Of course if you feel that way about it, I——”

“That’s the way I feel all right. But you won’t give up the idea of helping me, will you, because I—feel like that?”

“No,” answered Caroline softly, “I’ll help you all I can—about that letter, do you mean?”

“Yes, about that letter and about other things, too.”

“Give it to me,” said the girl, “I will go over it again.”

She sat down at the desk, and as she scanned it, Wilfred watched her anxiously. To them Mrs. Varney entered. She had an open letter in one hand and a cap and belt in the other. She stopped in the doorway and motioned for some one in the hall to follow her, and an orderly entered the room. His uniform was covered with dust, his sunburned, grim face was covered with sweat and dust also. He stood in the doorway with the ease of a veteran soldier, that is without the painful effort to be precise or formal which marks the young aspirant for military honours.

“Wilfred,” said Mrs. Varney, quickly approaching him, “here is a letter from your father.” She extended the paper. “He sent it by his orderly.”

Wilfred stepped closer to the elder woman while Caroline slowly rose from her chair, her eyes fixed on Mrs. Varney.

“What does he say, mother?” asked Wilfred.

“He says——” answered his mother with measured quietness, and controlling herself with the greatest difficulty, “he tells me that—that you—are——” in spite of her tremendous effort, her voice failed her. “Read it yourself, my boy,” she whispered pitifully.

The letter was evidently exceedingly brief. A moment put Wilfred in possession of its contents. His mother stood with head averted. Caroline stared with trembling lips, a pale face, and a heaving bosom. It was to the orderly that Wilfred addressed himself.

“I am to go back with you?”

“General’s orders, sir,” answered the soldier, saluting, “to enter the service. God knows we need everybody now.”

“When do we start?” asked Wilfred eagerly, his face flushing as he realised that his fondest desire was now to be gratified.

“As soon as you are ready, sir. I am waiting.”

“I am ready now,” said Wilfred. He turned to his mother. “You won’t mind, mother,” he said, his own lips trembling a little for the first time at the sight of her grief.

Mrs. Varney shook her head. She stepped nearer to him, smoothed the hair back from his forehead, and stretched out her arms to him as if she fain would embrace him, but she controlled herself and handed him the cap and belt.

“Your brother,” she said slowly, “seems to be a little better. He wants you to take his cap and belt. I told him your father had sent for you, and I knew you would wish to go to the front at once.”

Wilfred took the belt from her trembling hands, and buckled it about him. His mother handed him the cap.

“Howard says he can get another belt when he wants it, and you are to have his blankets, too. I will go and get them.”

She turned and left the room. She was nearly at the end of her resisting power, and but for the welcome diversion incident to her departure, she could not have controlled herself longer. The last one! One taken, one trembling, and now Wilfred!

The boy entered into none of the emotions of his mother. He clapped the cap on his head and threw it back.

“Fits me just as if it were made for me,” he said, settling the cap firmly in place. “Orderly, I will be with you in a jiffy.”

Caroline stood still near the table, her eyes on the floor.

“We won’t have to send it now, will we?” he pointed to the letter.

Caroline, with a long, deep sigh, shook her head, and slowly handed the letter to him. Wilfred took it mechanically, his eyes fixed on the girl, who had suddenly grown very white of face, trembly of lip, and teary of eye-lashes.

“You are very good,” he said, tearing the letter into pieces, “to help me like you did.”

“It was nothing,” whispered the girl.

“You can help me again, if you want to.”

Caroline lifted her eyes to his face, and he saw within their depths that which encouraged him.

“I can fight twice as well, if——”

Poor little Caroline couldn’t trust herself to speak. She nodded through her tears.

“Good-bye,” said Wilfred, “you will write to me about helping me to fight twice as well, won’t you. You know what I mean?”

Caroline nodded again.

“I wouldn’t mind if you telegraphed me that you would.”

What might have happened further will never be determined, for at this juncture Mrs. Varney came back with an old faded blanket tied in a roll. She handed it to the boy without speaking. Wilfred threw it over his shoulder, and kissed his mother hurriedly.

“You won’t mind much, will you, mother. I will soon be back. Orderly!” he cried.

“Sir.”

“I am ready,” said Wilfred.

He threw one long, meaning look at Caroline, and followed the soldier out of the door and across the hall. The opening and closing of an outside door was heard, and then all was still. Mrs. Varney held her hand to her heart, and long, shuddering breaths came from her. He might soon be back, but how. She knew all about the famous injunction of the Spartan woman, “With your shield or on it,” but somehow she had had no idea of the full significance until it came to her last boy, and for a moment she was forgetful of poor, little Caroline until she saw the girl wavering toward the door, and there was no disguise about the real tears in her eyes now.

“Are you going, dear?” asked Mrs. Varney, forcing herself to speak.

Caroline nodded her head as before.

“Oh, yes,” continued the older woman, “your party, you have to be there.”

At that the girl found voice, and without looking back she murmured, “There won’t be any party to-night.”