Right-minded and high-principled, Mrs. Ellsworth had conquered any pride
she might at first have felt--any reluctance to her brother's marrying
her governess, and now like him was anxious to have it settled. But Adah
gave him no chance that day, and late in the afternoon he rode back to
his regiment, wondering at the change in Miss Gordon, and why her face
was so deadly white, and her voice so husky, as she bade him good-by.
Poor Adah! Hers was now a path of suffering, such as she had never known
before. But she did her duty to the doctor faithfully, nursing him with
the utmost care; but never expressing to him the affection she did not
feel. It was impossible to keep his presence there a secret from the two
old negroes, and knowing she could trust them, she told them of the
wounded Union soldier, enlisting their sympathies for him, and thus
procuring for him the care of older and more experienced people than
herself.
He was able at length to return, and one pleasant summer night, just
three weeks after his arrival at Sunnymead, Adah walked with him to the
woods, and kneeling with him by a running stream, whose waters farther
away would yet be crimson with the blood of our slaughtered brothers,
she commended him to God. Through the leafy branches the moonbeams were
shining, and they showed to Adah the expression of the doctor's wasted
face as he said to her at parting: "I have kissed you many times, my
darling, but you have never returned it. Please do so once, dear Lily,
for the sake of the olden time. It will make me a better soldier."
She kissed him once for the sake of the olden time, and when he
whispered, "Again for Willie's sake," she kissed him twice, and then she
bade him leave her, herself buttoning about him the soldier coat which
her own hands had cleaned and mended and made respectable. She was glad
afterward that she had done so; glad, too, that she had kissed him and
waited by the tree, where, looking backward, he could see the flutter of
her white dress until a turn in the forest path hid her from his view.