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Page 49
The General stopped short and regarded me quietly.
"Oh, but--" I stammered. "But that isn't all--why, I don't
understand--it's criminal not to tell the rest--there's a lot."
"What do you want to hear?" he demanded, "I don't know any more--that's
all that happened."
"Don't be brutal," I pleaded. "I want to know, for one thing, how she
knew your name."
"Oh--that." He laughed like an amused child. "That was rather odd. You
remember I told you that when they were chasing us I took shelter and
shot the horses from under some of the Southerners."
"I remember."
"Well, the first man dismounted was Tom Ladd, the girl's cousin, who'd
been my classmate at the Point, and he recognized me. He ran back and
told them to make every effort to capture the party, as its leader was
Captain Carruthers, of Stoneman's staff, and undoubtedly carried
despatches."
"Oh!" I said. "I see. And where was Miss Ladd going, travelling your way
all day?"
"To see her wounded father at Falmouth, don't you understand? She'd had
word from him the day before. She was escorted by a strong party of
Confederates, including her brother and cousin. She started out with
just the old negro, and it was arranged that she should meet the party
at the cabin where I found her writing. They were to go with her to
Kelly's Ford, where she was to pass over to the Union post on the other
bank--she had a safe-conduct."
"Oh!" I assimilated this. "And she and her brother were Confederates,
and the father was a Northern general--how extraordinary!"
"Not in the least," the General corrected me. "It happened so in a
number of cases. She was a power in that campaign. She did more work
than either father or brother. A Southern officer told me afterward that
the men half believed what she said--that she was a witch, and got news
of our movements by magic. Nothing escaped her--she had a wonderful
mind, and did not know what fear was. A wonderful woman!"
He was smiling to himself again as he sat, with his great shoulders bent
forward and his scarred hand on his knee, looking into the fire.
"General," I said tentatively, "aren't you going to tell me what she
said when she saw you come into her father's tent?"
"Said?" asked the General, looking up and frowning. "What could she say?
Good-morning, I guess."
I wasn't afraid of his frown or of his hammer-and-tongs manner. I'd got
behind both before now. I persisted.
"But I mean--what did you say to each other, like the day before--how
did it all come out?"
"Oh, we couldn't do any love-making, if that's what you mean," he
explained in a business-like way, "because the old man was on deck. And
I had to leave in about ten minutes to ride back to join my command.
That was all there was to it."
I sighed with disappointment. Of course I knew it was just an idyll of
youth, a day long, and that the book was closed forty years before. But
I could not bear to have it closed with a bang. Somewhere in the
narrative had come to me the impression that the heroine of it had died
young in those exciting war-times of long ago. I had a picture in my
mind of the dancing eyes closed meekly in a last sleep; of the young
officer's hand laid sorrowing on the bright halo of hair.
"Did you ever see the girl again?" I asked softly.
The General turned on me a quick, queer look. Fun was in it, and memory
gave it gentleness; yet there was impatience, too, at my slowness, in
the boyish brown eyes.
"Mrs. Carruthers has red hair," he said briefly.
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