rstand.

I am going to my father.

A flood of recollection has poured upon me.

I am the happiest--no, the most wretched--man on earth.

XXXIX

REPARATION

"Unthread the rude eye of rebellion,
And welcome home again discarded faith."
--SHAKESPEARE.

My past life had rushed tumultuously upon me. Oh! the misery of it would
have slain me there, a rebel picket, but that balance was made by its
all coming.

I must turn my back upon my comrades, but I should go to my father. The
Southern cause must be forsaken, but I should recover my country.

At roll-call in Company H, no voice would henceforth respond to my name
distorted. My comrades would curse my memory. It must be my duty to
battle against friends by whose sides I had faced danger and death. The
glory of the Confederate victories would now bring me pain and not joy.
Oh! the deepness of the woe!

But, on the other hand, I should recover my life and make it complete. I
must atone for the unconscious guilt of a past gorgeous yet criminal--a
past which I had striven to sow with the seeds of a barbarous future. I
should be with the Doctor; I should be myself, and always myself, for I
knew that my mind should nevermore suffer a repetition of the mysterious
affliction which had changed me. My malady had departed forever; and
with this knowledge there had come upon the glimmering emotions of
repressed passion the almost overpowering consciousness that there was a
woman in the world.

I sought the low ground bordering the river. My companions had gone; I
would go. There was none to stop me; none to know my going. I wept and
laughed. I had no fear. Nothing was present--all was past and future. I
was strong and well. With my healing had come a revolution of another
kind--a physical change which I felt would make of me a different
creature from the poor moody rebel in rags, or even the groping Yankee
spy of the day and of the year before.

How I loved and pitied the men of Company H! They were devoted and true.
No matter what should befall them, they would continue to be true and
loyal to their instincts of duty. Misfortune, even the blackest
disaster, seems before them; but I know them for courage and for
fortitude to be the equals, at least, of any who may conquer them. Their
soldierly honour will be maintained even when they go down in defeat, as
they must; never will shame lay its touch upon their ways, no m