May blossoms had dropped, and June harvests were ripe on all the fields, ere he could take advantage of the unsolicited leave, and go home. Home--for which his heart longed!
He was not, however, in too great haste to stop by the way, to pause in Washington, and do what he had sooner intended to accomplish,--solicit, as a special favor to himself, as an honor justly won by the man for whom he entreated it, a promotion for Jim. "It is impossible now," he was informed, "but the case should be noted and remembered. If anything could certainly secure the man an advance, it was the advocacy of General Surrey"; and so, not quite content, but still satisfied that Jim's time was in the near future, he went on his way.
As the cars approached Philadelphia his heart beat so fast that it almost stifled him, and he leaned against the window heavily for air and support. It was useless to reason with himself, vain to call good judgment to his counsels and summon wisdom to his aid. This was her home. Somewhere in this city to which he was so rapidly hastening, she was moving up and down, had her being, was living and loving. After these long years his eyes so ached to see her, his heart was so hungry for her presence, that it seemed to him as though the sheer longing would call her out of her retreat, on to the streets through which he must pass, across his path, into the sight of his eyes and reach of his hand. He had thought that he felt all this before. He found, as the space diminished between them,--as, perchance, she was but a stone's throw from his side,--that the pain, and the longing, and the intolerable desire to behold her once again, increased a hundred-fold.
Eager as he had been a little while before to reach his home, he was content to remain quietly here now. He laughed at himself as he stepped into a carriage, and, tired as he was,--for his amputated arm, not yet thoroughly healed, made him weak and worn,--drove through all the afternoon and evening, across miles and miles of heated, wearisome stones, possessed by the idea that somewhere, somehow, he should see her, he would find her before his quest was done.
After that last painful rebuff, he did not dare to go to her home, could he find it, till he had secured from her, in some fashion, a word or sign. "This," he said, "is certainly doubly absurd, since she does not live in the city; but she is here to-day, I know,--she must be here"; and persisted in his endeavor,--persisted, naturally, in vain; and went to bed, at last, exhausted; determined that to-morrow should find him on his journey farther north, whatever wish might plead for delay, yet with a final cry for her from the depths of his soul, as he stretched out his solitary arm, ere sinking to restless sleep, and dreams of battle and death--sleep unrefreshing, and dreams ill-omened; as he thought, again and again, rousing himself from their hold, and looking out to the night, impatient for the break of day.