Presently she sat down on the bench
and covered her face with her hands. A tremor first, then a
convulsive sobbing, shook her collapsed form. Jean regarded her
with a drolly sympathetic grimace, elevating his long chin and
letting his head settle back between his shoulders.
"Oh, Jean, Jean!" she cried at last, looking up and reaching out
her arms; "O Jean, he is gone, gone, gone!"
Jean stepped closer to her while she sobbed again like a little
child.
She pulled him to her and held him tightly against her breast
while she once more read the note through blinding tears. The
words were few, but to her they bore the message of desolation and
despair. A great, haunting, hollow voice in her heart repeated
them until they echoed from vague distance to distance.
It was written with a bit of lead on the half of a mildewed fly-
leaf torn from the book:
"Dear Alice:
"I am going away. When you read this, think of me as hurrying
through the wilderness to reach our army and bring it here. Be
brave, as you always have been; be good, as you cannot help being;
wait and watch for me; love me, as I love you. I will come. Do not
doubt it, I will come, and I will crush Hamilton and his command.
Courage, Alice dear; courage, and wait for me. "Faithfully ever,
"Beverley."
She kissed the paper with passionate fervor, pouring her tears
upon it in April showers between which the light of her eyes
played almost fiercely, so poignant was her sense of a despair
which bordered upon desperation.
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