"Little one," he said to me, "you must go on to the Springs with our boy and I will join you just as soon as this business is settled."
"Go without you? Not for the whole world!" I replied. "No, indeed, my Soldier. I am going with you. Why, I would not leave you even if you were perfectly well. I am going with you."
He, with his usual unselfishness, urged my going to the Springs, pleading that he was not at all seriously ill and would be all right in a day or two.
"I am going to Norfolk," I said, "and that settles it."
"But think, little one, think," he replied. "You are packed and ready to start, your rooms are engaged and your tickets bought. Now, don't be a foolish little wife. Go on to the White where it is cool and pleasant--please, now, my Lily, please, dear. This business may not detain me over a day or two. Be good and go, and please me by escaping the heat and mosquitoes."
"I want to be foolish," I replied, "and I don't want to be good, nor stay in a cool and pleasant place when you are where it is uncomfortable and sweltering; I want to be scorched with heat and bitten by mosquitoes, so I am going with you if it is not longer than a minute."
I went. The day following our arrival in Norfolk my Soldier returned to the hotel suffering with a chill. The duties had proved more complicated than were anticipated and his illness had been aggravated by hard work in the intense heat. Feeling better the next morning, he insisted upon going out again, but within the hour came back with another chill.
Thus began the long battle with death, in which no impatient word escaped his lips. With the endurance born to the brave, trained in long marches and agonizing campaigns and steeled in the fires of battle, his soul rose triumphant above the shocks of physical torture. When intense pain forced a moan from his lips he would look up pathetically and apologize, saying:
"You must not mind my moaning, little one. I'm afraid husband is getting into bad habits; forgive him."
So solicitous was he for me that often he would not acknowledge that suffering had caused an expression of pain, but would say, "Oh, it was nothing." With serene face he met the agony, fighting a braver battle than had ever been waged upon a field of war. Oh, those dark, dark days when hope failed and faith waned! If there was one ray of light in their gloom as I look back through the long weary years, it was in the loving thoughtfulness and sympathy of his people, the people of our beloved land everywhere.