Moreover, the interest he had succeeded in awakening in her, the
mingling of pity and of respect that his words and his bearing had
aroused, was not extinct; had, indeed, only been strengthened by the
vague stories that had of late floated to her of the day of Zaraila; of
the day of smoke and steel and carnage, of war in its grandest yet its
most frightful shape, of the darkness of death which the courage
of human souls had power to illumine as the rays of the sun the
tempest-cloud. Something more like quickened and pleasured expectation
than any one among her many lovers had ever had power to rouse, moved
her as she heard of the presence of the man who, in that day, had saved
the honor of his Flag. She came of a heroic race; she had heroic blood
in her; and heroism, physical and moral, won her regard as no other
quality could ever do. A man capable of daring greatly, and of suffering
silently, was the only man who could ever hope to hold her thoughts.
The room was darkened from the piercing light without; and in its gloom,
as he was ushered in, the scarlet of her cashmere and the gleam of her
fair hair was all that, for the moment, he could see. He bowed very low
that he might get his calmness back before he looked at her; and her
voice in its lingering music came on his ear.
"You have found my chain, I think? I lost it in riding yesterday. I am
greatly indebted to you for taking care of it."
She felt that she could only thank, as she would have thanked an equal
who should have done her this sort of slight service, the man who had
brought to her the gold pieces with which his Colonel had insulted him.
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