An Echo of Antietam | Page 3

the lady's eyes. A clock in the sitting-room began to strike:
"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven."
Philip started.
"What time is that?" he asked, a little huskily. No one replied at once. Then Mr. Morton said:
"I am afraid it struck seven, my boy."
"I must leave in ten minutes then," said the young man, rising from the table. The rest followed his example.
"I wonder if the buggy will be in time?" said he.
"It is at the gate," replied Miss Morton. "I heard it drive up some time ago."
Unmindful of the others now, Philip put his arm about Grace's waist and drew her away to the end of the piazza and thence out into the garden.
"Poor young things," murmured Miss Morton, the tears running down her cheeks as she looked after them. "It is pitiful, James, to see how they suffer."
"Yes," said the minister; "and there are a great many just such scenes to-day. Ah, well, as St. Paul says, we see as yet but in part."
Passing in and out among the shrubbery, and presently disappearing from the sympathetic eyes upon the piazza, the lovers came to a little summer-house, and there they entered. Taking her wrists in his hands, he held her away from him, and his eyes went slowly over her from head to foot, as if he would impress upon his mind an image that absence should not have power to dim.
"You are so beautiful," he said, "that in this moment, when I ought to have all my courage, you make me feel that I am a madman to leave you for the sake of any cause on earth. The future to most men is but a chance of happiness, and when they risk it they only risk a chance. In staking their lives, they only stake a lottery ticket, which would probably draw a blank. But my ticket has drawn a capital prize. I risk not the chance, but the certainty, of happiness. I believe I am a fool, and if I am killed, that will be the first thing they will say to me on the other side."
"Don't talk of that, Phil. Oh, don't talk of being killed!"
"No, no; of course not!" he exclaimed. "Don't fret about that; I shall not be killed. I've no notion of being killed. But what a fool I am to waste these last moments staring at you when I might be kissing you, my love, my love!" And clasping her in his arms, he covered her face with kisses.
She began to sob convulsively.
"Don't, darling; don't! Don't make it so hard for me," he whispered hoarsely.
"Oh, do let me cry," she wailed. "It was so hard for me to hold back all the time we were at table. I must cry, or my heart will break. Oh, my own dear Phil, what if I should never see you again! Oh! Oh!"
"Nonsense, darling," he said, crowding down the lump that seemed like iron in his throat, and making a desperate effort to keep his voice steady. "You will see me again, never doubt it. Don't I tell you I am coming back? The South cannot hold out much longer. Everybody says so. I shall be home in a year, and then you will be my wife, to be God's Grace to me all the rest of my life. Our happiness will be on interest till then; ten per cent, a month at least, compound interest, piling up every day. Just think of that, dear; don't let yourself think of anything else."
"Oh, Phil, how I love you!" she cried, throwing her arms around his neck in a passion of tenderness. "Nobody is like you. Nobody ever was. Surely God will not part us. Surely He will not. He is too good."
"No, dear, He will not. Some day I shall come back. It will not be long. Perhaps I shall find you waiting for me in this same little summer-house. Let us think of that. It was here, you know, we found out each other's secret that day."
"I had found out yours long before," she said, faintly smiling.
"Time 's up, Phil." It was Mr. Morton's voice calling to them from the piazza.
"I must go, darling. Good-by."
"Oh, no, not yet; not quite yet," she wailed, clinging to him. "Why, we have been here but a few moments. It can't be ten minutes yet."
Under the influence of that close, passionate embrace, those clinging kisses and mingling tears, there began to come over Philip a feeling of weakness, of fainting courage, a disposition to cry out, "Nothing can be so terrible as this. I will not bear it; I will not go." By a tyrannical effort of will, against which his whole nature cried out, he unwound her arms from his neck and said in a choked voice:--
"Darling, this