e door of my
heart, and putting their heads in. Before tea these visions had come
and vanished; often enough, to be sure; now they came and stayed. I
was very quiet, I am certain of that; I was as certainly very sober,
with a great and growing sadness at my heart. I think Thorold was
grave, too, though I hardly looked at him. We did not speak to each
other all the time the servant was busy in the room. We stood silent
before the fire. The study I had come to do had all passed away out of
my mind, though the books were within three feet of me. I was growing
sadder and sadder every minute.

"Things have changed, since we talked so lightly last summer of what
might be," Thorold said at last. And he said it in a meditative way,
as if he were pondering something.

"Yes," I assented.

"The North does not wish for war. The South have brought it upon
themselves."

"Yes," I said again, wondering a little what was coming.

"However disagreeable my duty may be, it is my duty; and there is no
shirking it."

"No," I said. "Of course."

"And if your friends are on one side and I on the other,--it is not my
fault, Miss Randolph."

"No," I said; "not at all."

"Then you do not blame me for taking the part I _must_ take?"

"No," I said. "You must take it."

"Are you sorry I take it?" said Thorold with a change of tone, and
coming a step nearer.

"Sorry?" I said, and I looked up for an instant. "No; how could I be
sorry? it is your duty. It is right." But as I looked down again I had
the greatest difficulty not to burst into tears. I felt as though my
heart would break in two with its burden of pain. It cost a great
effort to stand still and quiet, without showing anything.

"What is it, then?" said Thorold; and with the next words I knew he
had come close to my side and was stooping his head down to my face,
while his voice dropped. "What is it, Daisy?--Is it--O Daisy, I love
you better than anything else in the world, except my duty! Daisy, do
you love me?"

Nothing could have been more impossible to me, I think, than to answer
a word; but, indeed, Thorold did not seem to want it. As he questioned
me, he had put his arm round me and drawn me nearer and nearer,
stooping his face to me, till his lips took their own answer at mine;
indeed, took answer after answer, and then, in a sort of passion of
mute joy, kissed my face all over. I could not forbid him; between
excitement and sorrow and happiness and shame, I could