"I love you, and you say that you love me. Thank God for it!"

They sat with clasped hands, their cheeks touching, their breath
mingling. "Judith, Judith, how lovely are you! I have seen you always,
always!... Only I called it 'vision,' 'ideal.' At the top of every deed
I have seen your eyes; from the height of every thought you have
beckoned further! Now--now--It is like a wonderful home-coming ... and
yet you are still there, above the mountains, beckoning, drawing--There
and here, here in my arms!... Judith--What does 'Judith' mean?"

"It means 'praised.' Oh, Richard, I heard that you were wounded at
Kernstown!"

"It was nothing. It is healed.... I will write to your father at once."

"He will be glad, I think. He likes you.... Have you a furlough? How
long can you stay?"

"Love, I cannot stay at all. I am on General Jackson's errand. I must
ride on to Gordonsville--It would be sweet to stay!"

"When will you come again?"

"I do not know. There will be battles--many battles, perhaps--up and
down the Valley. Every man is needed. I am not willing to ask even a
short furlough."

"I am not willing that you should.... I know that you are in danger
every day! I hear it in the wind, I see it in every waving bough.... Oh,
come back to me, Richard!"

"I?" he answered, "I feel immortal. I will come back."

They rose from the rock. "The sun is setting. Would you rather I went on
to the house? I must turn at once, but I could speak to them--"

"No. Aunt Lucy is in town, Unity, too.... Let's say good-bye before we
reach the carriage."

They went slowly by the quiet road beneath the flowering trees. The
light was now only on the hilltops; the birds were silent; only the
frogs in the lush meadows kept up their quiring, a sound quaintly
mournful, weirdly charming. A bend of the road showed them Isham, the
farm horses, and the great old carriage waiting beneath a tulip tree.
The lovers stopped, took hands, moved nearer each to the other, rested
each in the other's arms. Her head was thrown back, his lips touched her
hair, her forehead, her lips. "Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye!"

He put her in the carriage, kissed her hands as they lay on the door
ledge, and stood back. It was not far to the Greenwood gates; the old,
slow horses moved on, the carriage rounded a leafy turn, the road was
left to the soldier and his horse.

Cleave rode to Gordonsville that night as though he carried Heaven with
him. The road was fair, th