Page:War; or, What happens when one loves one's enemy, John Luther Long, 1913.djvu/245

A FAVOR TO SHOOT HER "Good night, dearest of daddies, you've done me the favor of my life. Honest! I wonder if I could have carried it through? When I heard that whistle I wanted to run home instead of to the Potomac. My head knew the way South, but my legs knew only the way back to you-all. Dave's black was waiting for me. I was to go into the cavalry,—Stuart's. I had already enlisted—as Mallory."

Then it seemed as if the horror of it suddenly came over her. She sobbed, shrieked, raved for a minute.

"Oh, daddy, you don't know what you have saved me from. Why, daddy, if you had had to kill me—if I were lying here now dying—I would thank you! Yes, that would be better than anything I had planned! Yes! Daddy, daddy, God bless that bullet of yours! And, yes, yes, as I said before, good night, dearest of daddies, good night! Thank you—thank you so much for shooting me. There seemed no way out. Then you come with your gun—and, lo! it is all fixed as quickly as that shot 229