She waited.  Wrath died, scorn died; there was not enough to dry her tears at night—­a deeper, more hopeless humiliation had become the shame of forgiving him, of loneliness without him, of waiting for his letter, heart sick—­his letter that never came.

Letter after letter to him she destroyed, and fell ill of the tension, or perhaps of a heavy cold caught in the rain where she had walked for hours, aimlessly, unable to bear her longing and her desolation.

Dr. Benton attended her; the pretty volunteer nurse came to sit with her during convalescence.

The third week in June she was physically well enough to dress and go about the house.  And on that day she came to her shameful decision.

She wrote him, waited a dreary week for an answer; wrote him again, waited two weeks; wrote him a third and last letter.  No answer came.  And she went dully about the task of forgetting.

About the middle of July she heard from Stephen that Berkley had enlisted in one of the new unattached cavalry companies, but which one he did not know.  Also she learned that the 3rd Zouaves had their marching orders and would probably come to the city to receive their colours.  Later she heard from the mayor, the common council, and from Major Lent; and prepared for the ceremony.

The ceremony was prettily impressive; Ailsa, Mrs. Craig, her daughters, Paige and Marye, and Camilla Lent wearing a bell button from Stephen’s zouave jacket, stood on the lawn in front of Ailsa’s house, escorted by Colonel Arran who had returned from Washington, with his commission, by the mayor of the city, and several red-faced, fat-paunched gentlemen of the common council, and by a young officer, Captain Hallam, who stood behind Ailsa and seemed unable to keep his handsome eyes off her.

Twenty-third Street was packed solid with people and all aflutter with flags under the July sun when the distant strains of military music and blue lines of police heralded the coming of the 3rd Zouaves.

Band crashing, raw, gray horses of field and staff-officers dancing, the regiment came swinging down the wide stony street,—­a torrent of red and gold, a broad shaft of silvery bayonets;—­and halted facing the group of ladies and officials.

Celia Craig looked down at her husband where he sat his great gray horse.  Their last good-bye had already been said; he sat erect, calm, gazing quietly up at her through his gold-rimmed eye-glasses; from his blue sleeves’ edge to the points of his shoulders glittered in twisted gold the six-fold arabesques of his rank.

The roar of cheers was dying away now; a girlish figure in white had moved forward to the edge of the lawn, carrying two standards in her arms, and her voice was very clear and sweet and perfectly audible to everybody;

“Colonel Craig, officers, and soldiers of the 3rd New York Zouaves; the ladies of the Church of Sainte Ursula have requested me, in their name, to present to you this set of colours.  God guard them and you!