I


AT BREAK OF DAY

"Stay here beside her, major. I shall not he needed for an hour yet.
Meanwhile I'll go downstairs and snatch a bit of sleep, or talk to old
Jane."

The night was hot and sultry. Though the windows of the chamber were
wide open, and the muslin curtains looped back, not a breath of air was
stirring. Only the shrill chirp of the cicada and the muffled croaking
of the frogs in some distant marsh broke the night silence. The heavy
scent of magnolias, overpowering even the strong smell of drugs in the
sickroom, suggested death and funeral wreaths, sorrow and tears, the
long home, the last sleep. The major shivered with apprehension as the
slender hand which he held in his own contracted nervously and in a
spasm of pain clutched his fingers with a viselike grip.

Major Carteret, though dressed in brown linen, had thrown off his coat
for greater comfort. The stifling heat, in spite of the palm-leaf fan
which he plied mechanically, was scarcely less oppressive than his own
thoughts. Long ago, while yet a mere boy in years, he had come back from
Appomattox to find his family, one of the oldest and proudest in the
state, hopelessly impoverished by the war,--even their ancestral home
swallowed up in the common ruin. His elder brother had sacrificed his