u shall have all
the blessings I can win in life."

They sat in silence until the lowering sun had left the valley in shadow
and smiled only on the hilltop where they lingered. Perhaps the dread
parting that was near seemed creeping toward them with the shades of
night, for his arm stole softly about her waist, and her hand crept
into his. They watched until the last ray of sunlight had vanished, and
when they arose he once more gathered her close in his arms and
whispered:

"Promise me, my darling, that if I never come back you will visit this
spot alone, once a year, in June, and if there be such a thing as a life
beyond the grave, I will be here in spirit."

"I promise," she answered solemnly, "and no man shall ever have the
right to stop me."

When they were ready to leave the place he had to lead her to the
carriage, for her eyes were blinded by tears.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND ME.

With bayonets flashing in the sunlight, with flags flying and keeping
step to the martial music, Southton's brave Company E marched full one
hundred strong to the depot the next day, ready to leave for the war.

Almost the entire town was there to see them off, and hundreds of men,
old and young, filled the air with cheers. Mingling in that throng were
as many mothers, wives, sweethearts and sisters with aching hearts,
whose sobs of anguish were woven into the cheering. Strong men wept as
well. As the train rolled away, Manson fought the tears back that he
might not lose the last sight of one fair girl whose heart he knew was
breaking. When it was all over, and he realized that for months or
years, or perhaps never, would he behold her again, he knew what war and
parting meant. He had obeyed his conscience and sense of duty, and now
he must pay the price, and the payment was very bitter. Of his future
he knew not, or what it might hold for him. He could only hope that when
his hour of trial came that he would not falter, and if the worst must
come that he would find strength to meet it as a soldier should.

War is such a ghastly, hideous horror, and so utterly at variance with
this simple narrative, that I hesitate to speak of it. There can be no
moments of happiness, no rifts of sunshine, and but few gleams of hope
woven into the picture. All must be as war is--a varying but continued
succession of dreaded horror and the fear of death. The first month of
Manson's experience at the training camp was hard