“Oh, Curt, Curt,” she faltered, her soft cheeks pressed against the stiff bullion on his sleeve and collar, “if only I had the wretched consolation of sending you away to fight fo’ the Right—­fo’ God and country—­There, darling!  Fo’give me—­fo’give me.  I am yo’ wife first of all—­first of all, Curt.  And that even comes befo’ country and—­God!—­Yes, it does! it does, dear.  You are all three to me—­I know no holier trinity than husband, God, and native land. . . . Must you go so soon?  So soon? . . .  Where is my boy—­I’m crying so I can’t see either of you—­Stephen!  Mother’s own little boy—­mother’s little, little boy—­oh, it is ve’y hard—­ve’y hard——­”

[Illustration:  “Must you go so soon?  So soon?”]

“Steve—­I think you’d better kiss your mother now”—­his voice choked and he turned his back and stood, the sun glittering on the gold and scarlet of his uniform.

Mother and son clung, parted, clung; then Colonel Craig’s glittering sleeve was flung about them both.

“I’ll try to bring him through all right, Celia.  You must believe that we are coming back.”

So they parted.

And at three in the morning, Celia, lying in her bed, started to a sitting posture.  Very far away in the night reveille was sounding for some regiment outward bound; and then the bugles blew for another regiment and another, and another, until everywhere the darkened world grew gaily musical with the bugle’s warning.

She crept to the window; it was too dusky to see.  But in obscurity she felt that not far away husband and son were passing through darkness toward the mystery of the great unknown; and there, in her night-dress, she knelt by the sill, hour after hour, straining her eyes and listening until dawn whitened the east and the rivers began to marshal their ghostly hosts.  Then the sun rose, annihilating the phantoms of the mist and shining on columns of marching men, endless lines of waggons, horse-batteries, foot artillery, cavalry, engineers with gabions and pontoons, and entire divisions of blue infantry, all pouring steadily toward Alexandria and the river, where lay the vast transport fleet at anchor, destined to carry them whither their Maker and commanding general willed that they should go.

To Celia’s wet eyes there seemed to be little variation in the dull blue columns with the glitter of steel flickering about them; yet, here and there a brilliant note appeared—­pennons fluttering above lances, scarfs and facings of some nearer foot battery, and, far away toward Alexandria, vivid squares of scarlet in a green field, dimmed very little by the distance.  Those were zouaves—­her own, or perhaps the 5th, or the 9th from Roanoke, or perhaps the 14th Brooklyn—­she could not know, but she never took her eyes from the distant blocks and oblongs of red against the green until the woods engulfed them.

Ailsa still lay heavily asleep.  Celia opened the door and called her to the window.