CHAPTER x.x.xIV
LOVE"S PLEDGE
Again Betty Winter found in her work relief from despair. She had hoped for peace in the beauty and tenderness of Ned"s chivalrous devotion. Yet his one letter reporting the meeting had revealed her mistake. The moment she had read his confession the impulse to scream her protest to John was all but resistless. She had tried in vain to find a way of writing to Ned to tell him that she had deceived him and herself, and ask his forgiveness.
It was impossible to write to John under such conditions and she had suffered in silence. And then the wounded began to pour into Washington from Grant"s front. The like of that procession of ambulances from the landing on Sixth Street to the hospitals on the hills back of the city had never been seen. The wounded men were brought on swift steamers from Aquia Creek. Floors and decks were covered with mattresses on which they lay as thickly as they could be placed. As the wounded died on the way they were moved to the bow and their faces covered.
At the landing tender hands were lifting them into the ambulances which slowly moved out in one line to the hospitals and back in a circle by another. These ambulances stretched in tragic, unbroken procession for three miles and never ceased to move on and on in an endless circle for three days and nights.
In an agony of anxiety Betty asked to be transferred to the landing that she might watch them fill the wagons. Her soul was oppressed with the certainty that John Vaughan would be found in one of them.
On the morning of the third day they were still coming in never-ending streams from the steamer decks. She wrung her hands in a moment of despair:
"Merciful G.o.d! Are they bringing back Grant"s whole army?"
The patience of these suffering men was sublime. Only a sigh from one who would rise no more. Only a groan here and there from parched lips that asked for water.
At last came the ominous news for which she had watched and waited with sickening forebodings. The _Republican_ printed the name of Captain John Vaughan among the wounded in the fight of Warren and Hanc.o.c.k"s corps over the Weldon Railroad. There were only two thousand wounded men sent in on the steamers from the front after this battle, and they arrived at night.
Betty hurried to the landing and found that the ambulances had begun to move. She searched every face in vain, and when the last stretcher had pa.s.sed out walked with trembling steps and scanned each silent covered face in the bow.
"Thank G.o.d," she murmured, "he"s not there!"
She must begin now the patient search among the eighty thousand sick and wounded men in the city of sorrows on the hills.
She secured a hack and tried to reach the head of the procession and find the destination of the first wagons that had left before her arrival.
It was after midnight. A thunder storm suddenly rolled its dense clouds over the city and smothered the street lamps in a pall of darkness. The rain burst with a flash of lightning and poured in torrents. The electric display was awe-inspiring. The horses in one of the ambulances in the long line stampeded and smashed the vehicle in front. The procession was stopped in the height of the storm. The vivid flame was now continuous and Betty could see the wagons standing in a mud-splashed row for a mile, the lightning play bringing out in startling outline each horse and vehicle.
From every ambulance was hanging a fringe of curious objects shining white against the shadows when suddenly illumined. Betty looked in pity and awe. They were the burning fevered arms and legs and heads of the suffering wounded men eager to feel the splash of the cooling rain.
A full week pa.s.sed before her search ended and she located him in one of the big new buildings hastily constructed of boards.
With trembling step she started to go straight to his cot. The memory of his brutal stare that day stopped her and she scribbled a line and sent it to him:
"John, dear, may I see you a moment?
"BETTY."
The doctor a.s.sured her that he was rapidly recovering, though restless and depressed. She caught her breath in a little gasp of surprise at the sight of his white face, pale and spiritual looking now from the loss of blood.
Her eyes were shining with intense excitement as she swiftly crossed the room, dropped on her knees beside his cot and seized his hands:
"O John, John, can you ever forgive me!"
He slipped his arm around her neck and held her a long time in silence.
The men in the room paid no attention to the little drama. It was happening every day around them.
"Oh, dearest," she went on eagerly, "I tried to put you out of my heart, but I couldn"t. I am yours, all yours, body and soul. Love asks but one question--do you love me?"
"Forever!" he whispered.
"In my loneliness and despair I tried to give myself to Ned, but I couldn"t, dear. I would have told him so had I been able to reach him--though I dreaded to hurt him."
John drew her hands down and looked at her with a strange expression.
"He"s beyond the reach of pain and disappointment now, dear----"
"Dead?" she gasped.
The man only nodded, and clung desperately to her hands while her head sank in a flood of tears.
"We"ll cherish his memory," he said in a curiously quiet voice, "as one of the sweetest bonds between us, my love----"
"Yes--always!" was the low answer.
For the life of him John Vaughan couldn"t tell the terrible fact that his hand had struck him down. G.o.d alone should know that.
When she had recovered from the shock of the announcement Betty caressed his hand gently:
"We just love whom we love, dearest, and we can"t help it. I am yours and you are mine. It"s not a question of good or bad, right or wrong. We love--that"s all."
"Yes, we love--that"s all and it"s everything. There"s no more doubt, dear?"
"Not one," she cried. "I"m going to bring back the red blood to your cheeks now and take that fevered look out of your eyes----"
The weeks of convalescence were swift and beautiful to Betty--her ministry to his slightest whim a continuous joy. The only cloud in her sky was the strange, feverish, unquiet look in his eyes. On the day of his discharge he received a letter from his mother which deepened this expression to the verge of mania.
"What is it, dear?" Betty asked in alarm.
"One of those unfortunate things that have been happening somewhere every day for the past year--an arrest and imprisonment for treasonable utterances----"
"Who has been arrested?"
"This time my father in Missouri."
"Your father?" she gasped.
"Yes. He has been a bitter critic of the war. He seems to have gone too far. There was a riot of some sort in the village and he took the wrong side."
There was an ominous quiet in the way he talked.
"I"ll take you to see the President, dearest," she said soothingly.