Evelyn Byrd

“I’ll get Dorothy to ask both of them,” responded Kilgariff. “Then all possible contingencies will be fully met and provided for.

“Now for present concerns. If I can make a Confederate taper burn for an hour, I’ll write my letter to Dorothy, to accompany the papers, and to ask her to serve me in this matter of the trusteeship. I have a very capable young lawyer under my command here as a sergeant. Early in the morning I shall set him to work preparing the trust conveyances. He is a rapid worker, and will have the documents ready by nightfall. Then I’ll send them to Wyanoke by a courier. In the meanwhile I have Captain Harbach on my hands. I’m afraid I must ask you to act for me in that matter. While we have been talking, it has occurred to me that when I prefer my charges against Captain Harbach, he will be placed under arrest. In that position he would not be permitted to send me the hostile message he threatened to-night. It would be extremely unfair to him to place him in such a position. I want you to write to him, if you will, as my friend. Say to him that in view of his expressed desire to hold me responsible for words spoken to-night, and in order to give him opportunity to do so without embarrassment, I shall postpone for twenty-four hours, or for a longer time, if for any reason he cannot conveniently act within twenty-four hours, the preferring of my official charges against him. Ask him, please, to advise you of his wishes in the matter in order that I may comply with them.”

“You are a very cool hand, Kilgariff,” said Arthur, “and your courtesy to an enemy is extreme.”

“Oh, courtesy in such a case is a matter of course. Let me say to you, now, that when I meet Captain Harbach on the field, I shall fire high in the air. I have no desire to kill him or to inflict the smallest hurt upon him. I am merely giving him the opportunity he desires to kill me, by way of avenging himself upon me for the severe criticisms I have made upon his character, his conduct, and his assumption of functions that he is incapable of discharging with tolerable safety to other men. Let me make this matter plainer to your mind, Arthur. I do not at all believe in the duello. I think it barbarous in intent and usually ridiculous in its conduct. But I had the best of good reasons for saying what I did to Captain Harbach, and so I said it. What I said was exceedingly offensive to him, and the only way he knows of ‘vindicating’ himself is by challenging me to a duel. It would be a gross injustice on my part to refuse to meet him, and to do an injustice is to commit an immorality. So, of course, I shall meet him. As I have no desire to do him other harm than to get him removed from a position which he is incapable of filling with safety to others and benefit to the service, I shall not think of shooting at him. But I shall give him the privilege he craves of shooting at me. I really don’t mind, you know, under the circumstances, except that in any case I shall postpone his shooting at me till I can execute the documents relating to my property.”

“In view of your explanation,” answered Arthur, “I must decline to act as your friend in this matter.”

“But why?”

“Because I will have no part nor lot in a murder. I detest duelling, as you do; I regard it as a relic of feudalism which ought to give place to something better in our enlightened and law-governed time. But while it lasts, I am forced to consent to it, however unwillingly. I recognise the fact that the right of the individual to make private war on his own account is the only basis on which nations can logically or even sanely claim the right to make public war. Nations are only aggregations of individuals, and their rights are only the sum of the rights previously possessed by the individuals composing them. But while I feel in that way about duelling, I can have no part in a contest in which I know in advance that one of the contestants is going to shoot to kill, while the other is merely standing up to be shot at and does not himself intend to make war at all.”

“Very well,” answered Kilgariff. “I’ll get some one else to send the letter.”

He summoned an orderly and directed him to go to a neighbouring camp and ask an officer there to call upon Lieutenant-colonel Kilgariff, “concerning a purely personal matter, and not at all with reference to any matter of service.”

The officer, a fiery little fellow, responded at once to the summons, and he promptly wrote – spelling it very badly – the message which Kilgariff had asked Arthur to send.

Half an hour later, the messenger who had borne the note returned with it unopened. For explanation, he said: —

“Captain Harbach had his head blown off in the trenches just before daylight this morning.”

XVIII

EVELYN’S REVELATION

IT was during Arthur’s absence at Petersburg that Evelyn began talking with Dorothy about herself.

“It isn’t nice,” she said, as the two sat together in the porch one day, “for me to have reserves and secrets with you, Dorothy.”

“But why not? Every one is entitled to have reserves. Why should not you?”

“Oh, because – well, things are different with me. You are good to me – nobody was ever so good to me. I am living here, and loving you and letting you love me, and all the time you know nothing at all about me. It isn’t fair. I hate unfairness.”

“So do I,” answered Dorothy. “But this isn’t unfair. I never asked you to tell me anything about yourself.”

“That’s the worst of it. That’s what makes it so mean and ugly and unfair for me to go on in this way. Why should you be so good to me when you don’t know anything about me?”

“Why, because, although I do not know your history, I know you. If it is painful for you to tell me about yourself – ”

“It wouldn’t be painful,” the girl answered, with an absent, meditative look in her eyes. But she added nothing to the sentence. She merely caressed Dorothy’s hand. After a little silence, she suddenly asked: —

“What’s a ‘parole,’ Dorothy?”

Dorothy explained, but the explanation did not seem to satisfy.

“What does it mean? How much does it include? How long does it last?”

Dorothy again explained. Then Evelyn said: —

“It was a parole I took. I don’t know what or how much it bound me not to tell. I wish I could make that out.”

“If you could tell me something about the circumstances,” answered the older woman, “perhaps I could help you to find out. But you mustn’t tell me anything unless you wish.”

“I should like to tell you everything. You see, they were trying to send me South, through the lines somehow. They said I was to be sent to some relatives – but I reckon that wasn’t true. Anyhow, they wanted to send me through the lines, and they had to get permission. So they took me to a military man of some sort, and he took my parole. I had to swear not to tell anything to the enemy, and after I had sworn that I wouldn’t, he looked very sternly at me and told me I mustn’t forget that I had taken an oath not to tell anything I knew.”

Dorothy answered without hesitation that the parole referred only to military matters, and not at all to things that related only to the girl herself and her life.

“But, Dorothy, I didn’t know anything about military affairs – how could I? So I reckon they couldn’t have meant that.”

“They could not know what information you might have, or what messages some one might send through you. You may be entirely sure, dear, that your oath meant nothing in the world beyond that. The military authorities at the North care nothing about your private affairs or how much you may talk of them. Still, you are not to tell anything that you have doubts about. You are not to wound your own conscience. I sometimes think our own consciences are all there is of Judgment Day. You are always to remember that Arthur and I are perfectly satisfied to take you for what you are, asking no questions as to the rest. We are vain enough to think ourselves capable of forming our own judgment concerning the character of a girl like you. We are not afraid of making any mistake about that.”

Evelyn did not reply. She sat still, continuing to caress Dorothy’s hand. She was thinking in some troubled fashion, and Dorothy was wise enough to let her go on thinking without interruption.

After a while the girl suddenly dropped the hand, arose, and went out upon the lawn. Her mare was grazing there, and Evelyn called the animal to her. Leaping upon the unsaddled and unbridled mare, she started off at a gallop. Presently she slipped off her low shoes, and in her stocking feet stood erect upon the galloping animal’s back. With low, almost muttered commands she directed the mare’s course, making her leap a fence twice, while her rider sometimes stood erect, sometimes knelt, and sometimes sat for a moment, only to rise again with as great apparent ease as if she had been occupying a chair.

Finally she brought her steed to a halt, leaped nimbly to the ground, and resumed her slippers. She walked rapidly back to the porch, and, with a look of positively painful earnestness in her face, demanded: —

“Does that make a difference? Does it alter your opinion? Do you still believe in me?”

Her tone was so eager, so intense, that it seemed almost angry. Dorothy only answered: —

“It makes no difference.”

“You know what that means? You guess where I learned to do that?”

“Yes.”

“And still you do not cast me out? Still you do not command me to go away?”

“Not at all. Why should I?”

“But why not? Most women of your class and in your position would send me away.”

“I am perhaps not like most women of my class and condition. At any rate, as I told you a while ago, I know you, I trust you, I believe in you. You are you. What else matters? Let me tell you a little life-story. My mother was a musician, who performed in public. Everybody about here scorned her for that. But she was the superior of all of them. She was a woman of genius and strong character. She hated shams and conventionalities, and she was a good woman. When the war came, she set to work nursing the wounded. She was shot to death a little while ago, and the soldiers loved her so that they rolled a great boulder over her grave and carved a loving inscription upon it with their own hands. Many of them were killed in doing that; but whenever one fell, another took his place. Do you think, Evelyn, that I, her daughter, could ever scorn a good woman like you, merely because she was or had been an actor in a show? I tell you, Evelyn Byrd, I know you, and that is quite enough for me.”

“Is it enough for Cousin Arthur?”

“Yes, assuredly.”

“And for – well, for others?”

“If you mean Kilgariff, yes. If you mean the conventional people, no. So you had better never say anything about it to them.”

At Dorothy’s mention of Kilgariff’s name, Evelyn started as if shocked. But quickly recovering herself, she said with passion in her tones: —

“You are the very best woman in the world, Dorothy. I shall not long have any secrets from you.”