“Oh, Celia!”

“Yes, he said it, darling!  I stood there, frozen—­in a corner of my heart I had been afraid—­such a long time!—­but to have it come real—­’this terror!—­to have this thing take my husband—­come into our own home befo’ I knew—­befo’ I dreamed—­and take Curt!—­take —­my—­Curt!”

“Where is he?”

“With—­them.  They have a camp near Fort Hamilton.  He went there this morning.”

“When is he coming back?”

“I don’t know.  Stephen is scaring me most to death; he is wild to go, too.  And, oh—­do you believe it?  Captain Lent has gone with Curt to the camp, and Curt means to recommend him for his major. What a regiment!—­all the soldiers are mere boys, they say—­wilful, reckless, hair-brained boys who don’t know—­can’t know—­where they’re going. . . .  And Curt is so blind without his glasses, and Captain Lent is certainly a little mad, and I’m most distracted myse’f——­”

“Darling—­darling—­don’t cry!”

“Cry?  Oh, I could die, Ailsa.  Yet, I’m Southern enough to choke back eve’y tear and let them go with a smile if they had to go fo’ God and the Right!  But to see my Curt go this way—­and my only son crazy to join him—­Oh, it is ha’d, Honey-bee, ve’y, ve’y ha’d.”

“Dearest!”

“O Honey-bud!  Honey-bud!”

And the two women mourned, uncomforted.

Ailsa remained for three unhappy days in Fort Greene Place, then fled to her own house.  A light, amusing letter from Berkley awaited her.  It was so like him, gay, cynical, epigrammatic, and inconsequent, that it cheered her.  Besides, he subscribed himself very obediently hers, but on re-examining the letter she noticed that he had made no mention of coming to pay his respects to her.

So she lived her tranquil life for another week; and Colonel Arran came every day and seemed always to be waiting for something—­always listening—­gray face buried in his stock.  And at the week’s end she answered Berkley’s letter—­although, in it, he had asked no question.

“DEAR MR. BERKLEY: 

“Such sad news from the Craigs.  Estcourt has accepted the command of one of the new zouave regiments—­the 3d, in camp near Fort Hamilton.  But, being in his office, I suppose you have heard all about it from Stephen.  Poor Celia Craig!  It is peculiarly distressing in her case; all her sympathies are with her native state, and to have her husband go under such unusually tragic circumstances seems too dreadful.  Celia is convinced that he will never return; she reads some Southern paper which breathes awful threats against the Zouaves in particular.  Besides, Stephen is perfectly determined to enlist in his father’s regiment, and I can see that they can’t restrain him much longer.  I have done my best; I have had him here and talked to him and argued with him, but I have made no headway.  No appeal moves him; he says that the land will need every man sooner or later, and that the quicker he begins the sooner he will learn how to look out for himself in battle.