Ailsa Paige Part 50

"Colonel Arran," she said miserably, "it was all my fault. I am too ashamed to look at you."

"Let me do what worrying is necessary," he said quietly. "I am-not unaccustomed to it... . I suppose he ran the guard."

She did not answer.

The ghost of a smile-a grim one-altered the Colonel's expression for a second, then faded. He looked at Ailsa curiously. Then:

"Have you anything to tell me that-perhaps I may be ent.i.tled to know about, Ailsa?"

"No."

"I see. I beg your pardon. If you ever are-perplexed-in doubt-I shall always--"

"Thank you," she said faintly... . "And-I am so sorry--"

"So am I. I'm sorrier than you know-about more matters than you know, Ailsa-" He softly smote his buckskin-gloved hands together, gazing at vacancy. Then lifted his head and squared his heavy shoulders.

"I thought I'd come when I could. The chances are that the army will move if this weather continues. The cavalry will march out anyway. So I thought I'd come over for a few moments, Ailsa... . Are you sure you are quite well? And not overdoing it? You certainly look well; you appear to be in perfect health... . I am very much relieved... . And-don't worry. Don't cherish apprehension about-anybody." He added, more to himself than to her: "Discipline will be maintained-must be maintained. There are more ways to do it than by military punishments, I know that now."

He looked up, held out his hand, retained hers, and patted it gently.

"Don't worry, child," he said, "don't worry." And went out to the porch thoughtfully, gazing straight ahead of him as his horse was brought up. Then, gathering curb and snaffle, he set toe to stirrup and swung up into his saddle.

"Ormond!" he called.

Berkley rode up and saluted.

"Ride with me," said Colonel Arran calmly.

"Sir?"

"Rein up on the left." And, turning in his saddle, he motioned back his escort twenty paces to the rear. Then he walked his big, bony roan forward.

"Ormond?"

"Yes, Colonel."

"You ran the guard?"

"Yes, Colonel."

"Why?"

Berkley was silent.

The Colonel turned in his saddle and scrutinised him. The lancer's visage was imperturbable.

"Ormond," he said in a low voice, "whatever you think of me-whatever your att.i.tude toward me is, I would like you to believe that I wish to be your friend."

Berkley's expression remained unchanged.

"It is my desire," said the older man, "my-very earnest-desire."

The young lancer was mute.

Arran's voice fell still lower:

"Some day-if you cared to-if you could talk over some-matters with me, I would be very glad. Perhaps you don't entirely understand me. Perhaps I have given you an erroneous impression concerning-matters-which it is too late to treat differently-in the light of riper experience-and in a knowledge born of years-solitary and barren years--"

He bent his gray head thoughtfully, then, erect in his saddle again:

"I would like to be your friend," he said in a voice perceptibly under control.

"Why?" asked Berkley harshly. "Is there any reason on G.o.d's earth why I could ever forgive you?"

"No; no reason perhaps. Yet, you are wrong."

"Wrong!"

"I say so in the light of the past, Berkley. Once I also believed that a stern, uncompromising att.i.tude toward error was what G.o.d required of an upright heart."

"Error! D-do you admit that?" stammered Berkley. "Are you awake at last to the deviltry that stirred you-the d.a.m.nable, misguided, distorted conscience that twisted you into a murderer of souls? By G.o.d, are you alive to what you did to-her?"

Colonel Arran, upright in his saddle and white as death, rode straight on in front of him.. Beside him, knee to knee, rode Berkley, his features like marble, his eyes ablaze.

"I am not speaking for myself," he said between his teeth, "I am not reproaching you, cursing you, for what you have done to me-for the ruin you have made of life for me, excommunicating me from every hope, outlawing me, branding me! I am thinking, now, only of my mother. G.o.d!-to think-to think of it-of her--"

Arran turned on him a face so ghastly that the boy was silenced.

Then the older man said: "Do you not know that the h.e.l.l men make for others is what they are destined to burn in sooner or later? Do you think you can tell me anything of eternal punishment?" He laughed a harsh, mirthless laugh. "Do you not think I have learned by this time that vengeance is G.o.d's-and that He never takes it? It is man alone who takes it, and suffers it. Humanity calls it justice. But I have learned that what the laws of men give you is never yours to take; that the warrant handed you by men is not for you to execute. I-have-learned-many things in the solitary years, Berkley... . But this-what I am now saying to you, here under the stars-is the first time I have ever, even to myself, found courage to confess Christ."

Very far away to the south a rocket rose-a slender thread of fire. Then, to the northward, a tiny spark grew brighter, flickered, swung in an arc to right, to left, dipped, soared, hung motionless, dipped again to right, to left, tracing faint crimson semicircles against the sky.

Two more rockets answered, towering, curving, fading, leaving blue stars floating in the zenith.

And very, very far away there was a dull vibration of thunder, or of cannon.

CHAPTER XIV

The tremendous exodus continued; regiment after regiment packed knapsacks, struck tents, loaded their waggons and marched back through the mud toward Alexandria, where transports were waiting in hundreds.

The 3rd Zouaves were scheduled to leave early. Celia had only a few hours now and then in camp with husband and son. Once or twice they came to the hospital in the bright spring weather where new blossoms on azalea and jasmine perfumed the fields and flowering peach orchards turned all the hills and valleys pink.

Walking with her husband and son that last lovely evening before the regiment left, a hand of each clasped in her own, she strove very hard to keep up the gaiety of appearances, tried with all her might to keep back the starting tears, steady the lip that quivered, the hands that trembled locked in theirs.

They were walking together in a secluded lane that led from behind the Farm Hospital barns to a little patch of woodland through which a clear stream sparkled, a silent, intimate, leafy oasis amid an army-ridden desert, where there was only a cow to stare at them, knee deep in young mint, only a shy cardinal bird to interrupt them with its exquisite litany.