A War-Time Wooing | Page 9

are fixed on vacancy, if anything, and the colonel's attempt at
cheeriness meets no response. As the vehicle slowly rattles away he
makes an effort, rouses himself as it were from a stupor-like condition,
and abruptly speaks:
"You tell me that--that you have seen Lieutenant Abbot's mail all
summer and spring and never saw a--our postmark--Hastings?"
"I have seen his mail very often, and thought his correspondents were
all home people. I am sure I would have noticed any letters coming
frequently in one handwriting, and his father's is the only masculine
superscription that was at all regular."
"My letters--our home letters--were not often addressed by me,"
hesitates the doctor. "The postmark might have given you an idea. I had
not time--" but he breaks off, weakly. It is so hard for him to
prevaricate: and it is bitter as death to tell the truth, now. And
worse--worse! What is he to tell--how is he to tell her?
The colonel speaks slowly and sadly, but with earnest conviction:
"No words can tell you how I mourn the heartlessness of this trick,

doctor; but you may rest assured it is no doing of Abbot's. What earthly
inducement could he have? Think of it! a man of his family and
connections--and character, too. Some scoundrel has simply borrowed
his name, possibly in the hope of bleeding you for money. Did none of
the letters ever suggest embarrassments? It is most unfortunate that you
did not bring them with you. I know the writing of every officer and
many of the men in the regiment, and it would give me a clew with
which to work. Promise me you will send them when you reach home."
The Doctor bows his head in deep dejection. "What good will it do? I
thought to find a comrade of my boy's. Indeed! it must be one who
knew him well!--and how can I desire to bring to punishment one who
appreciated my son as this unknown writer evidently did. His only
crime seems to have been a hesitancy about giving his own name."
"And a scoundrelly larceny of that of a better man in every way. No,
doctor. The honor of my regiment demands that he be run down and
brought to justice; and you must not withhold the only proof with
which we can reach him. Promise me!"
"I--I will think. I am all unstrung now, my dear sir! Pray do not press
me! If it was not Mr. Abbot, who could it have been? Who else could
have known him?"
"Why, Doctor Warren, there are probably fifty Harvard men in this one
regiment--or were at least," says the colonel, sadly, "up to a month ago.
Cedar Mountain, Bull Run, South Mountain, and Antietam have left
but a moiety. Most of our officers are graduates of the old college, and
many a man was there. I dare say I could have found a dozen who well
knew your son. In the few words I had with Abbot, he told me he
remembered that there had been some talk among the officers last July
after your son was killed. Some one saw the name in the papers, and
said that it must have been Warren of the class of '58, and our Captain
Webster, who was killed at Manassas, was in that class and knew him
well. Abbot said he remembered him, by sight, as a sophomore would
know a senior, but had never spoken to him. Anybody hearing all the
talk going on at the time we got the news of Seven Pines could have
woven quite a college history out of it--and somebody has."

"Ah, colonel! There is still the fact of the photograph, and the letters
that were written about Guthrie all last winter--long before Seven
Pines."
The colonel looks utterly dejected, too; he shakes his head, mournfully.
"That troubles Abbot as much as it does me. Fields, gallant fellow, was
our adjutant then, and he and Abbot were close friends. He could
hardly have had a hand in anything beyond the photograph and letter
which, you tell me, were sent to the Soldier's Aid Society in town. I
remember the young fellows were having quite a lot of fun about their
Havelocks when we lay at Edwards's Ferry--but Fields was shot dead,
almost the first man, at Cedar Mountain, and of the thirty-five officers
we had when we crossed the Potomac the first time, only eleven are
with the--th to-day. Abbot, who was a junior second lieutenant then, is
a captain now, by rights, and daily expecting his promotion. I showed
you several letters in his hand, and they, you admit, are utterly unlike
the ones you received. Indeed, doctor, it is impossible to connect Abbot
with it in any way."
The doctor's face