He knew my passionate fondness for music and took delight in pleasing me. What pictures he could paint on the canvas of my fancy! Under the spell of his music I would drop anchor in the harbor of the fairest dream. Now, it would be a landscape the brush of his bow would paint--a midsummer day with sheep gently grazing on some hillside: again, it would be a forest, with treetops cowering before an on-rushing storm.
One evening he was playing with the mute on "Humoresque." His big brown eyes, that were not the least attractive feature of his handsome face, looked steadily into mine across the bridge of his violin.
[Illustration: DOCTOR LUGAR AND AIDS WORKING IN A GAS ATTACK NEAR JOLNEY.]
"I see a coast," I replied; "it is a fair summer day, with waves of all blue and silver, dancing in the breeze. A yacht is just off shore; the sail, a creamy bit of color; at the tiller a chap, handsome as yourself, and at his side a girl"--here he stopped playing and looking intently at me exclaimed:
"Why, that's the very thing I was thinking of myself!"
Laying aside the violin he drew from his kit a bundle of letters tied with ribbon. Delightedly, radiantly, he showed me _her_ picture--yes, her pictures, for surely he had twenty of them. Then he narrated "the sweetest story ever told"; how wonderful she was, how tenderly he loved her, how they had sacredly promised to marry on his return, and planned to seek their young fortunes in South America.
The days following were filled with big thrilling events. The ebb and flow of battle called into action all that was best and noblest in the boys, and my Lieutenant served his Battery and wrought deeds of valor to a degree all excelling and inspiring. I knew the secret of it all, it was the thought of her, his promised wife, and of the bliss awaiting a gallant soldier's return.
It was just one week later the letter came. Few received mail that day; he was one who did. My attention was first called to him by the sound of a moan that seemed to come from a heart utterly broken. He stood leaning against a caisson staring at the letter, his face deathly white. Instinctively I realized it all. It was from her, and its message was as some stroke of lightning from a cloudless sky. Mutely he came to me, pressed the letter in my hand, and turned away.