But under visions I had made my resolve. Douglas was dead, but others
were living.
Two months before in a gray dawn, the walls of a fort in Charleston
Harbor had crumbled under fire from a score of rebel batteries. Now the
shots echoed in my ears with a new volume.
"Good luck, Solon--and good-by--I'm going 'on to Richmond.'"
"Oh, _that!_" said he, easily, "that will be over before you can get to
the front."
But I went, forthwith, and, triumphant lover though he was, the editor
of the _Little Arcady Argus_ was less than a prophet.
I went to the "little" war; and of her I carried, as I marched, an
ambrotype in a closed case, which I had obtained deviously. She smiled
in it, a little questioning, inciting smile, that seemed to lurk back in
her eyes rather than along her lips. It was the smile that had availed
to keep me firm in my vows of silence.
It was another picture I brought back five years later--the picture of a
young girl, not smiling but grave, even fearful, as if she had faced the
camera full of apprehension. But I knew her not; the thing had come to
me by chance, and I threw it aside to be forgotten.
It is best to tell quickly that those years were swift and full.
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