To say that Paul Abbot was made very happy over his most unexpected promotion would be putting it mildly. He hates to leave the old regiment, but he has done hard fighting, borne several hard knocks, is still weak and shaky from recent wounds; and to be summoned to Washington, there to meet his proud father, and to receive his appointment as assistant adjutant-general from the hands of the most distinguished representative "in Congress assembled" of his distinguished state, is something to put new life into a young soldier's heart. Duties for him there are none at the moment: he is to get strong and well before again taking the field, and, for the time being, he is occupying a room at Willard's adjoining that of his father. His arm is still in a sling; his walk is still slow and somewhat painful; he has ordered his new uniform, and meantime has procured the staff shoulder-straps and buttons, and put them on his sack-coat; he has had many letters to write, and much pleasant congratulation and compliment to acknowledge; and so the three or four days succeeding his arrival pass rapidly by. One afternoon he returns from a drive with his father; they have been out to visit friends in camp, and talk over home news, and now he comes somewhat slowly up the stairs of the crowded hotel to the quiet of the upper corridors. He smiles to himself at the increasing ease with which he mounts the brass-bound steps, and is thankful for the health and elasticity returning to him. He has just had the obnoxious beard removed, too; and freshly shaved, except where his blond mustache shades the short upper lip, with returning color and very bright, clear eyes, the young major of staff is a most presentable-looking youth as he stops a moment to rest at the top of the third flight. His undress uniform is decidedly becoming, and all the more interesting because of the sling that carries his wounded arm. And now, after a moment's breathing-spell, he walks slowly along the carpeted corridor, and turns into the hallway leading to his own room. Along this he goes some twenty paces or more, when there comes quickly into view from a side gallery the figure of a tall, slight, and graceful girl. She has descended some little flight of stairs, for he could hear the patter of her slippered feet, and the swish of her skirts before she appeared. Now, with rapid step she is coming straight towards him, carrying some little glass phials in her hand. The glare of the afternoon sun is blazing in the street, and at the window behind her. Against this glare she is revealed only en silhouette. Of her features the young soldier can see nothing. On the contrary, as he is facing the light, Major Abbot realizes that every line of his countenance is open to her gaze. Before he has time to congratulate himself that recent shaving and the new straps have made him more presentable, he is astonished to see the darkly-outlined figure halt short: he sees the slender hands fly up to her face in sudden panic or shock; crash go the phials in fragments on the floor, and the young lady, staggering against the wall, is going too—some stifled exclamation on her lips.
Abbot is quick, even when crippled. He springs to her side just in time to save. He throws his left arm around her, and has to hug her close to prevent her slipping through his clasp—a dead weight—to the floor. She has fainted away, he sees at a glance, and, looking about him, he finds a little alcove close at hand; he knows it well, for there on the sofa he has spent several restful hours since his arrival. Thither he promptly bears her; gently lays her down; quickly opens the window to give her air; then steps across the hall for aid. Not a soul is in sight. His own room is but a few paces away, and thither he hastens; returns speedily with a goblet of ice-water in his hand, and a slender flask of cologne tucked under his arm. Kneeling by the sofa, he gently turns her face to the light, and sprinkles it with water; then bathes, with cologne, the white temples and soft, rippling, sunny hair. How sweet a face it is that lies there, all unconscious, so close to his beating heart! Though colorless and marble-like, there is beauty in every feature, and signs of suffering and pain in the dark circles about the eyes and in the lines at the corners of the exquisite mouth. Even as he clumsily but most assiduously mops with his one available hand and looks vaguely around for feminine assistance, Major Abbot is conscious of a feeling of proprietorship and confidence that is as unwarranted, probably, as it is new. 'Tis only a faint, he is certain. She will come to in a moment, so why be worried? But then, of course, 'twill be embarrassing and painful to her not to find some sympathetic female face at hand when she does revive; and he looks about him for a bell-rope: none nearer than the room, and he hates to leave her. At last comes a little shivering sigh, a long gasp. Then he holds the goblet to her lips and begs her to sip a little water, and, somehow, she does, and with another moment a pair of lovely eyes has opened, and she is gazing wildly into his.
"Lie still one minute," he murmurs. "You have been faint; I will bring your friends."
But a little hand feebly closes on his wrist. She is trying to speak; her lips are moving, and he bends his handsome head close to hers; perhaps she can tell him whom to summon.
But he starts back, amazed, when the broken, half-intelligible, almost inaudible words reach his ears,
"Paul! Papa—said—you were killed. Oh! he will be so glad!"
And then comes a burst of tears.
Abbot rises to his feet and hurries into the hall. He is bewildered by her words. He feels that it must be some case of mistaken identity, but—how strange a coincidence! Close by the fragments of the phials he finds a door key and the presumable number of her room. Only ten steps away from the little flight of stairs he finds a corresponding door, and, next, an open room. Looking therein, he sees a gentle, matronly woman seated by a bedside, slowly fanning some recumbent invalid. She puts her fingers on her lips, warningly, as she sees the uniform at her door.
"Do not wake him, it is the first sound sleep he has had for days," she says. "Is this the army doctor?"
"No," he whispers, "a young lady has just fainted down in the next corridor. Her room adjoins this. Do you know her?"
"Oh, Heaven! I might have known it. Poor child, she is utterly worn out. This is her father. Will you stay here just a few moments? His son was a soldier, too, and was killed—and so was her lover—and it has nearly killed the poor old gentleman. I'll go at once."
Still puzzling over his strange adventure, and thinking only of the sweet face of the fainting girl, Abbot mechanically takes the fan the nurse has resigned and slowly sweeps the circling flies away. The invalid lies on his right side with his face to the wall; but the soft, curling gray hair ripples under the waves of air stirred by the languid movement of the fan. The features have not yet attracted his attention. He is listening intently for sounds from the corridor. His thoughts are with the girl who has so strangely moved him; so strangely called his name and looked up into his eyes with a sweet light of recognition in hers—with a wild thrill of delight and hope in them, unless all signs deceive him. The color, too, that was rushing into her face, the sudden storm of emotion that bursts in tears; what meant all this—all this in a girl whom never before had he seen in all his life? Verily, strange experiences were these he was going through. Only a week or so before had not that gray-haired old doctor shown almost as deep an emotion on meeting him at Frederick? And was he not prostrated when assured of his mistake, and was it not hard to convince him that the letters to which he persistently referred were forgeries? Some scoundrel who claimed to know his son was striving to bleed him for money, probably, and using, of all others, the name of Paul Abbot. And this poor old gentleman here had also lost a son, and the sweet, fragile-looking girl a lover! How peacefully the old man sleeps, thinks Abbot, as he glances a moment around the room. There are flowers on the table near the open window; books, too, which, perhaps, she had tried to read aloud. The window opens out over Pennsylvania Avenue, and the hum and bustle of thronging life comes floating up from below; a roar of drums is growing louder every minute, and presently bursts upon the ear as though, just issuing from a neighboring street, the drummers were marching forth upon the avenue. Abbot glances at his patient, fearful lest the noise should wake him, but he sleeps the sleep of exhausted nature, and the soldier in his temporary nurse prompts him to steal to the window and look down upon the troops. They are marching south, along Fourteenth Street—a regiment going over to the fortifications beyond the Long Bridge, and, after a glance, Abbot steps quickly back. On the table nearest the window lies a dainty writing-case, a woman's, and the flap is down on a half-finished letter. On the letter, half disclosed, is the photograph of an officer. It is strangely familiar as Abbot steps towards it. Then—the roar of the drums seems deafening; the walls of the little room seem turning upside down; his brain is in some strange and sudden whirl; but there in his hands he holds, beyond all question—his own picture—a photograph by Brady, taken when he was in Washington during the previous summer. He has not recovered his senses when there is an uneasy movement at the bed. The gray-haired patient turns wearily and throws himself on the other side, and now, though haggard and worn with suffering, there is no forgetting that sorrow-stricken old face. In an instant Major Abbot has recognized his visitor of the week before. There before him lies Doctor Warren. Who—who then is she?
