Morning would tell the tale. Into the city from which they marched, men and boys would come back; an army nearly as great as had gone forth, but an army halting, maimed, helpless, wounded, suffering, shot to pieces. They had seen it too often not to be able to forecast the scene absolutely. They knew with what heroic determination their veterans, under the great Lee, were fighting back the terrific attacks of their brothers in blue, under the grimly determined Grant. They could hear his great war-hammer ringing on their anvil; a hammer of men, an anvil of men. Plan or no plan, success or no success of some Secret Service operations, some vital point was being wrestled for in a death-grapple between two armies; and all the offensive capacities of the one and all the defensive resources of the other were meeting, as they had been meeting during the long years.
In a time like that, of public peril and public need, private and personal affairs ought to be forgotten, but it was not so. Love and hate, confidence and jealousy, faithfulness and disloyalty, self-sacrifice and revenge, were still in human hearts. And these feelings would put to shame even the passions engendered in the bloody battles of the fearful warfare.
Edith Varney, for instance, had gone out of the telegraph office assured that the sacrifice she had made for her lover had resulted in the betrayal of her country; that Thorne had had not even the common gratitude to accede to her request, although she had saved his life, and, for the time being, his honour. Every cannon-shot, every crashing volley of musketry that came faintly or loudly across the hills seemed pointed straight at her heart. For all she knew, the despatch had been sent, the cunningly devised scheme had been carried out, and into some undefended gap in the lines the Federal troops were pouring. The defence would crumble and the Army would be cut in two; the city of Richmond would be taken, and the Confederacy would be lost.
And she had done it! Would she have done it if she had known? She had certainly expected to establish such a claim upon Thorne by her interposition that he could not disregard it. But if she had known positively that he would have done what she thought he did, would she have sent him to his death? She put the question to herself in agony. And she realised with flushes of shame and waves of contrition that she would not, could not have done this thing. She must have acted as she had, whatever was to come of it. Whatever he was, whatever he did, she loved that man. She need not tell him, she need tell no one, there could be no fruition to that love. She must hide it, bury it in her bosom if she could, but for weal or woe she loved him above everything else, and for all eternity.