Part 68 (2/2)
”And I love you, my sweetheart--”
He clasped her in his arms and held her in silence.
She pushed him at arm's length and looked wistfully into his face.
”For the past month my heart has been singing. Through all the shame and misery of the sacking of our home, I could laugh and be happy--foolishly happy, because I knew that you loved me--”
”How did you know?”
”You told me--”
”When?”
”With the last little touch of your hand when I went South.”
He pressed it with desperate tenderness.
”It shall be forever?”
”Forever!”
”Neither life nor death, nor height nor depth can separate us?”
”What could separate us, my lover? You are mine. I am yours. You have given your life to our cause--”
”I am but a soldier of fortune--”
”You are my soldier--you have given your life because I asked it. I give you mine in return--”
”Swear to me that you'll love me always!”
She answered with a kiss.
”I swear it.”
Again he clasped her in his arms and hurried from the house. The twilight was falling. Artillery wagons were rumbling through the streets. A troop train had arrived from the South. Its regiments were rus.h.i.+ng across the city to reenforce McGruder's thin lines on the Peninsula. McClellan's guns were already thundering on the sh.o.r.es.
He hurried to the house on Church Hill, his dark face flushed with happiness, his heart beating a reveille of fear and joy.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE PANIC IN RICHMOND
Richmond now entered the shadows of her darkest hour. Three armies were threatening from the west commanded by Fremont, Milroy, and Banks, whose forces were ordered to unite. McDowell with forty thousand men lay at Fredericksburg and threatened a junction with McClellan, who was moving up the Peninsula with an effective army of 105,000.
Joseph E. Johnston had under his command more than fifty thousand with which to oppose McClellan's advance. It was the opinion of Davis and Lee that the stand for battle should be made on the narrow neck of the Peninsula which lent itself naturally to defense.
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