"
Her child eyes coaxed him to stay. The mad longing was in him to kiss the
rosy little mouth with the queer alluring droop to its corners. It was a
strange thing how, with that arched twist to her eyebrows and with that
smile which came and went like sunshine in her eyes, she toppled his
lifelong creed. The cardinal tenet of his faith had been a belief in
strength. He had first been drawn to Virginia by reason of her pluck and
her power. Yet this child's very weakness was her fountain of strength.
She cried out with pain, and he counted it an asset of virtue in her. She
acknowledged herself a coward, and his heart went out to her because of
it. The battle assignments of life were not for the soft curves and shy
winsomeness of this dainty lamb.
"You will be brave. I expect you to be brave, lieutenant." Words of love
and comfort were crowding to his brain, but he would not let them out.
"How long will you be gone?" she sobbed.
"I may possibly get back before midnight, but you mustn't begin to expect
me until to-morrow morning, perhaps not till to-morrow afternoon.
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