How the tidings of that timely rescue thrill through every heart at old Fort Warrener! There are gathered the wives and children of the regiment. There is the A few weeks later, while the —th is still on duty rounding up the Indians in the mountains, the wounded are brought home to Warrener. There are not many, for only the first detachment of two small troops had had any serious engagement; but the surgeons say that Mr. Lee's arm is so badly crippled that he can do no field work for several months, and he had best go in to the railway. And now he is at Warrener; and here, one lovely moonlit summer's evening, he is leaning on the gate in front of the colonel's quarters, utterly regardless of certain injunctions as to avoiding exposure to the night air. Good Mrs. Wilton, the major's wife,—who, army fashion, is helping Miriam keep house in her father's absence,—has gone in before "to light up," she says, though it is too late for callers; and they have been spending a long evening at Captain Gregg's, "down the row." It is Miriam who keeps the tall lieutenant at the gate. She has said good-night, yet lingers. He has been there several days, his arm still in its sling, and not once has she had a word with him alone till now. Some one has told her that he has asked for leave of absence to go East and settle some business affairs he had to leave abruptly when hurrying to take part in the campaign. If this be true is it not time to be making her peace? The moonlight throws a brilliant sheen on all surrounding objects, yet she stands in the shade, bowered in a little archway of vines that overhangs the gate. He has been strangely silent during the brief walk homeward, and now, so far from following into the shadows as she half hoped he might do, he stands without, the flood of moonlight falling full upon his stalwart figure. Two months ago he would not thus have held aloof, yet now he is half extending his hand as though in adieu. She cannot fathom this strange silence on the part of him who so long has been devoted as a lover. She knows well it cannot be because of her injustice to him at the Point that he is unrelenting now. Her eyes have told him how earnestly she repents: and does he not always read her eyes? Only in faltering words, in the presence of others all too interested, has she been able to speak her thanks for Philip's rescue. She cannot see now that what he fears from her change of mood is that gratitude for her brother's safety, not a woman's response to the passionate love in his deep heart, is the impulse of this sweet, half-shy, half-entreating manner. He cannot sue for love from a girl weighted with a sense of obligation. He knows that lingering here is dangerous, yet he cannot go. When friends are silent 'tis time for chats to close: but there is a silence that at such a time as this only bids a man to speak, and speak boldly. Yet Lee is dumb. Once—over a year ago—he had come to the colonel's quarters to seek permission to visit the neighboring town on some sudden errand. She had met him at the door with the tidings that her father had been feeling "Won't I do for commanding officer this time?" she had laughingly inquired. "I would ask no better fate—for all time," was his prompt reply, and he spoke too soon. Though neither ever forgot the circumstance, she would never again permit allusion to it. But to-night it is uppermost in her mind. She must know if it be true that he is going. "Tell me," she suddenly asks, "have you applied for leave of absence?" "Yes," he answers, simply. "And you are going—soon?" "I am going to-morrow," is the utterly unlooked-for reply. "To-morrow! Why—Mr. Lee!" There can be no mistaking the shock it gives her, and still he stands and makes no sign. It is cruel of him! What has she said or done to deserve penance like this? He is still holding out his hand as though in adieu, and she lays hers, fluttering, in the broad palm. "I—I thought all applications had to be made to—your commanding officer," she says at last, falteringly, yet archly. "Major Wilton forwarded mine on Monday. I asked him to say nothing about it. The answer came by wire to-day." "Major Wilton is post commander; but—did you not—a year——?" "Did I not?" he speaks in eager joy. "Do you No answer for a minute; but her hand is still firmly clasped in his. At last,— "Don't you think you ought to have asked me, before applying for leave to go?" Mr. Lee is suddenly swallowed up in the gloom of that shaded bower under the trellis-work, though a radiance as of mid-day is shining through his heart. But soon he has to go. Mrs. Wilton is on the veranda, urging them to come in out of the chill night air. Those papers on his desk must be completed and filed this very night. He told her this. "To-morrow, early, I will be here," he murmurs. "And now, good-night, my own." But she does not seek to draw her hand away. Slowly he moves back into the bright moonbeams and she follows part way. One quick glance she gives as her hand is released and he raises his forage cap. It is such a disadvantage to have but one arm at such a time! She sees that Mrs. Wilton is at the other end of the veranda. "Good-night," she whispers. "I—know you must go." "I must. There is so much to be done." "I—thought"—another quick glance at the piazza—"that a soldier, on leaving, should—salute his commanding officer?" And Romney Lee is again in shadow and—in sunshine. Late that autumn, in one of his infrequent letters to his devoted mother, Mr. McKay finds time to allude to the news of Lieutenant Lee's approaching marriage to Miss Stanley. "Phil is, of course, immensely pleased," he writes, "and from all I hear I suppose Mr. Lee is a very different fellow from what we thought six months ago. Pennock says I always had a wrong idea of him; but Pennock thinks all my ideas about the officers appointed over me are absurd. He likes old Pelican, our battery commander, who is just the crankiest, crabbedest, sore-headedest captain in all the artillery, and that is saying a good deal. I wish I'd got into the cavalry at the start; but there's no use in trying now. The —th is the only regiment I wanted; but they have to go to reveille and stables before breakfast, which wouldn't suit me at all. "Hope Nan's better. A winter in the Riviera will set her up again. Stanley asks after her when he writes, but he has rather dropped me of late. I suppose it's because I was too busy to answer, though he ought to know that in New York harbor a fellow has no time for scribbling, whereas, out on the plains they have nothing else to do. He sent me his picture a while ago, and I tell you he has improved wonderfully. Such a swell moustache! I meant to have sent it over for you and Nan to see, but I've mislaid it somewhere." Poor little Nan! She would give many of her treasures for one peep at the coveted picture that Will holds so lightly. There had been temporary improvement in her health at the time Uncle Jack came with the joyous tidings that Stanley was safe after all; but "The time to see the Yosemite and 'the glorious climate of California' is April, not October," he suddenly declares, one balmy morning by the Mediterranean; "and the sooner we get back to Yankeedom the better 'twill suit me." And so it happens that, early in the month of meteorological smiles and tears, the trio are speeding westward far across the rolling prairies: Mrs. McKay deeply scandalized at the heartless conduct of the War Department in refusing Willy a two-months' leave to go with them; Uncle Jack quizzically disposed to look upon that calamity as a not utterly irretrievable ill; and Nan, fluttering with hope, fear, joy, and dread, all intermingled; for is not he stationed at Cheyenne? All these long months has she cherished that little knot of senseless ribbon. If she had sent it to him within the week of his graduation, perhaps it would not have seemed amiss; but after that, after all he had been through in the campaign,—the long months of silence,—he might have changed, and, for very shame, she cannot bring herself to give a signal he would perhaps no longer wish to obey. Every hour her excitement and nervousness increase; but when the conductor of the "Miss Nannie!" And there—bending over her, his face aglow, and looking marvellously well in his cavalry uniform—is Philip Stanley. She knows not what she says. She has prepared something proper and conventional, but it has all fled. She looks one instant up into his shining eyes, and there is no need to speak at all. Every one else is so busy that no one sees, no one knows, that he is firmly clinging to her hand, and that she shamelessly and passively submits. A little later—just as the train is about to start—they are standing at the rear door of the sleeper. The band of the —th is playing some distance up the platform,—a thoughtful device of Mr. Lee's to draw the crowd that way,—and they are actually alone. An exquisite happiness is in her eyes as she peers up into the love-light in his strong, steadfast face. Something must have been said; for he draws her close to his side and "My darling,—my little Nannie," he whispers, as his lips kiss away the gathering tears. "There is just an instant. What is it you tell me you have kept for me?" "This," she answers, shyly placing in his hand a little packet wrapped in tissue-paper. "Don't look at it yet! Wait!—But—I wanted to send it—the very next day, Philip." Slowly he turns her blushing face until he can look into her eyes. The glory in his proud, joyous gaze is a delight to see. "My own little girl," he whispers, as his lips meet hers. "I know it is my love-knot." |