At the corner she stopped abruptly and bade her good-bye:
"I must leave you now, Mrs. Cameron. I will call for you in the morning and help you secure the pa.s.ses to enter the hospital."
The mother stroked the girl"s hand and held it lingeringly.
"How good you are," she said softly. "And you have not told me your name?"
Elsie hesitated and said:
"That"s a little secret. They call me Sister Elsie, the Banjo Maid, in the hospitals. My father is a man of distinction. I should be annoyed if my full name were known. I"m Elsie Stoneman. My father is the leader of the House. I live with my aunt."
"Thank you," she whispered, pressing her hand.
Elsie watched the dark figure disappear in the crowd with a strange tumult of feeling.
The mention of her father had revived the suspicion that he was the mysterious power threatening the policy of the President and planning a reign of terror for the South. Next to the President, he was the most powerful man in Washington, and the unrelenting foe of Mr. Lincoln, although the leader of his party in Congress, which he ruled with a rod of iron. He was a man of fierce and terrible resentments. And yet, in his personal life, to those he knew, he was generous and considerate. "Old Austin Stoneman, the Great Commoner," he was called, and his name was one to conjure with in the world of deeds. To this fair girl he was the n.o.blest Roman of them all, her ideal of greatness. He was an indulgent father, and while not demonstrative, loved his children with pa.s.sionate devotion.
She paused and looked up at the huge marble columns that seemed each a sentinel beckoning her to return within to the cot that held a wounded foe. The twilight had deepened, and the soft light of the rising moon had clothed the solemn majesty of the building with shimmering tenderness and beauty.
"Why should I be distressed for one, an enemy, among these thousands who have fallen?" she asked herself. Every detail of the scene she had pa.s.sed through with him and his mother stood out in her soul with startling distinctness--and the horror of his doom cut with the deep sense of personal anguish.
"He shall not die," she said, with sudden resolution. "I"ll take his mother to the President. He can"t resist her. I"ll send for Phil to help me."
She hurried to the telegraph office and summoned her brother.
CHAPTER II
THE GREAT HEART
The next morning, when Elsie reached the obscure boarding-house at which Mrs. Cameron stopped, the mother had gone to the market to buy a bunch of roses to place beside her boy"s cot.
As Elsie awaited her return, the practical little Yankee maid thought with a pang of the tenderness and folly of such people. She knew this mother had scarcely enough to eat, but to her bread was of small importance, flowers necessary to life. After all, it was very sweet, this foolishness of these Southern people, and it somehow made her homesick.
"How can I tell her!" she sighed. "And yet I must."
She had only waited a moment when Mrs. Cameron suddenly entered with her daughter. She threw her flowers on the table, sprang forward to meet Elsie, seized her hands and called to Margaret.
"How good of you to come so soon! This, Margaret, is our dear little friend who has been so good to Ben and to me."
Margaret took Elsie"s hand and longed to throw her arms around her neck, but something in the quiet dignity of the Northern girl"s manner held her back. She only smiled tenderly through her big dark eyes, and softly said:
"We love you! Ben was my last brother. We were playmates and chums. My heart broke when he ran away to the front. How can we thank you and your brother!"
"I"m sure we"ve done nothing more than you would have done for us," said Elsie, as Mrs. Cameron left the room.
"Yes, I know, but we can never tell you how grateful we are to you. We feel that you have saved Ben"s life and ours. The war has been one long horror to us since my first brother was killed. But now it"s over, and we have Ben left, and our hearts have been crying for joy all night."
"I hoped my brother, Captain Phil Stoneman, would be here to-day to meet you and help me, but he can"t reach Washington before Friday."
"He caught Ben in his arms!" cried Margaret. "I know he"s brave, and you must be proud of him."
"Doctor Barnes says they are as much alike as twins--only Phil is not quite so tall and has blond hair like mine."
"You will let me see him and thank him the moment he comes?"
"Hurry, Margaret!" cheerily cried Mrs. Cameron, reentering the parlour.
"Get ready; we must go at once to the hospital."
Margaret turned and with stately grace hurried from the room. The old dress she wore as unconscious of its shabbiness as though it were a royal robe.
"And now, my dear, what must I do to get the pa.s.ses?" asked the mother eagerly.
Elsie"s warm amber eyes grew misty for a moment, and the fair skin with its gorgeous rose tints of the North paled. She hesitated, tried to speak, and was silent.
The sensitive soul of the Southern woman read the message of sorrow words had not framed.
"Tell me, quickly! The doctor--has--not--concealed--his--true--condition--from--me?"
"No, he is certain to recover."
"What then?"
"Worse--he is condemned to death by court-martial."
"Condemned to death--a--wounded--prisoner--of--war!" she whispered slowly, with blanched face.
"Yes, he was accused of violating the rules of war as a guerilla raider in the invasion of Pennsylvania."
"Absurd and monstrous! He was on General Jeb Stuart"s staff and could have acted only under his orders. He joined the infantry after Stuart"s death, and rose to be a colonel, though but a boy. There"s some terrible mistake!"
"Unless we can obtain his pardon," Elsie went on in even, restrained tones, "there is no hope. We must appeal to the President."
The mother"s lips trembled, and she seemed about to faint.
"Could I see the President?" she asked, recovering herself with an effort.
"He has just reached Washington from the front, and is thronged by thousands. It will be difficult."
The mother"s lips were moving in silent prayer, and her eyes were tightly closed to keep back the tears.
"Can you help me, dear?" she asked piteously.
"Yes," was the quick response.
"You see," she went on, "I feel so helpless. I have never been to the White House or seen the President, and I don"t know how to go about seeing him or how to ask him--and--I am afraid of Mr. Lincoln! I have heard so many harsh things said of him."