It was
hard just when the tenderest and sweetest impulses that ever filled his
soul wore clamoring for speech, to turn his back on all, say good-bye
and go--to war--perhaps to kill his own brother.
And there could be no mistake, war had come. Overhead he caught the
steady tramp of Senator Winter's feet, a caged lion walking back and
forth with hungry eyes turned toward the South. He could feel his deadly
hostility through the very walls.
A battery of artillery suddenly roared through the streets, the dull
heavy rattle of its wheels over the cobblestones, and the crack of the
driver's whip echoing and reechoing through the house. Behind it came
the steady tramp, tramp, of a regiment of infantry, the loud call of
their volunteer officers ringing sharply their orders at the turn of the
street. Far off on the Capitol Hill he heard the sharp note of a bugle
and the rattle of horses' hoofs. Every hour the raw troops were pouring
into the city from the North, the East and the West.
He wondered with a strange catch in his throat what difference this was
going to make between him and the girl he loved. There was no longer any
question about the love. He marvelled that he had been too stupid to
realize it and speak before this shadow had fallen between them. She
knew that his sympathies were with the South and he knew with equal
certainty she had never believed that he would fight to destroy the
Union when the test should come.
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