re full of fools. . . . We can stand a few
first-class men. Come up to camp to-morrow, friend. If you can
pass the surgeons I guess it will be all right."

And he prodded his tired horse forward along the slowly moving
column of fours.

CHAPTER X

Her hatred and horror of him gave her no peace. Angry, incensed,
at moments almost beside herself with grief and shame and
self-contempt, she awaited the letter which he must write--the
humble and hopeless effort for pardon which she never, never would
answer or even in her own soul grant.

Day after day she brooded, intent, obsessed, fiercely pondering his
obliteration.

But no letter came.

No letter came that week, nor Monday, nor at the end of the next
week, nor the beginning of the next.

Wrath, at night, had dried her eyes where she lay crying in her
humiliation; wrath diminished as the days passed; scorn became less
rigid, anger grew tremulous. Then what was lurking near her
pillow lifted a pallid head. Fear!

She waited. Wrath died, scorn died; there was not enough to dry
her tears at night--a deeper, more hopeless humiliation had become
the shame of forgiving him, of loneliness without him, of waiting
for his letter, heart sick--his letter that never came.

Letter after letter to him she destroyed, and fell ill of the
tension, or perhaps of a heavy cold caught in the rain where she
had walked for hours, aimlessly, unable to bear her longing and her
desolation.

Dr. Benton attended her; the pretty volunteer nurse came to sit
with her during convalescence.

The third week in June she was physically well enough to dress and
go about the house. And on that day she came to her shameful
decision.

She wrote him, waited a dreary week for an answer; wrote him again,
waited two weeks; wrote him a third and last letter. No answer
came. And she went dully about the task of forgetting.

About the middle of July she heard from Stephen that Berkley had
enlisted in one of the new unattached cavalry companies, but which
one he did not know. Also she learned that the 3rd Zouaves had
their marching orders and would probably come to the city to
receive their colours. Later she heard from the mayor, the common
council, and from Major Lent; and prepared for the ceremony.

The ceremony was prettily impressive; Ailsa, Mrs. Craig, her
daughters, Paige and Marye, and Camilla Lent wearing a bell button
from Stephen's zouave jacket, stood on the lawn in