"Goodby" It was between twilight and candlelight, the gentle half-hour when the kind old Sand Man steals up the stairs of houses where children are; when rustic lovers stroll with slow and quiet steps down country lanes, and old bachelors are loneliest and dream of the things that might have been.
Through the silence of the clear dusk came the whistle of the evening boat that was to bear Tom Vanrevel through the first stage of his long journey to the front of war, and the sound fell cheerlessly upon Miss Betty's ear, as she stood leaning against the sun-dial among the lilac bushes. Her attitude was not one of reverie; yet she stood very still, so still that, in the wan shimmer of the faded afterglow, one might have passed close by her and not have seen her. The long, dark folds of her gown showed faintly against the gray stone, and her arms, bare from the elbow, lay across the face of the dial with unrelaxed fingers clenching the cornice; her head drooping, not languidly but with tension, her eyes half-closed, showing the lashes against a pale cheek; and thus, motionless, leaning on the stone in the dusk, she might have been Sorrow's self.
She did not move, there was not even a flicker of the eyelashes, when a step sounded on the gravel of the driveway, and Vanrevel came slowly from the house. He stopped at a little distance from her, hat in hand. He was very thin, worn and old-looking, and in the failing light might have been taken for a tall, gentle ghost; yet his shoulders were squared and he held himself as straight as he had the first time she had ever seen him.
"Mrs. Tanberry told me I should find you here," he said, hesitatingly. "I have come to say good-by."
She did not turn toward him, nor did more than her lips move as she answered, "Good-by," and her tone was neither kind nor cold, but held no meaning whatever, not even indifference.
There was an interval of silence; then, without surprise, he walked sadly to the gate, paused, wheeled about suddenly, and returned with a quick, firm step.
"I will not go until I know that I do not misunderstand you," he said, "not even if there is only the slightest chance that I do. I want to say something to you, if you will let me, though naturally I remember you once asked me never to speak to you again. It is only that I have thought you did that under a misconception, or else I should still obey you. If you--"
"What is it that you wish to say?" Her tone was unchanged.
"Only that I think the hardest time for you has passed, and that--"
"Do you?" she interrupted.
"Yes," he returned, "the saddest of your life. I think it has gone forever. And I think that what will come to you will be all you wish for.
There will be a little time of waiting--"
"Waiting for what?"
He drew a step nearer, and his voice became very gentle. "Cummings and I reach our regiment tomorrow night; and there in the camp is a group of men on the way to the war, and they all go the more bravely because each one of them has you in his heart;--not one but will be a better soldier because of you. I want you to believe that if all of them don't come back, yet the one whose safety you think of and fear for will return.
