Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/32

 our men at Greensboro en come right on fas' ez my legs'd carry me."

There was silence for a moment and then slowly Mrs. Gaston said, "May God reward you, Nelse!"

"Yassum, I'se free, Missy, but I gwine ter wuk for you en my young Marster."

Mrs. Gaston had lived daily in a sort of trance through those four years of war, dreaming and planning for the great day when her lover would return a handsome bronzed and famous man. She had never conceived of the possibility of a world without his will and love to lean upon. The Preacher was both puzzled and alarmed by the strangely calm manner she now assumed. Before leaving the home he cautioned Aunt Eve to watch her Mistress closely and send for him if anything happened.

When the boy was asleep in the nursery adjoining her room, she quietly closed the door, took the sword of her dead lover-husband in her lap and looked long and tenderly at it. On the hilt she pressed her lips in a lingering kiss.

"Here his dear hand must have rested last!" she murmured. She sat motionless for an hour with eyes fixed without seeing. At last she rose and hung the sword beside his picture near her bed and drew from her bosom the crumpled, worn letters Nelse had brought. The first was addressed to her.

"In the Trenches Near Richmond, May 4, 1864.

—I have a presentiment to-night that I shall not live to see you again. I feel the shadows of defeat and ruin closing upon us. I am surer day by day that our cause is lost and surrender is a word I have never learned to speak. If I could only see you for one hour, that I might tell you all I have thought in the lone watches of the night in camp, or marching