There was something of this strange and fateful resignation in his face,
a few hours later, when he was able to be helped again into the saddle.
But he could see in the eyes of the few comrades who commiseratingly
took leave of him, a vague, half-repressed awe of some indefinite
weakness in the man, that mingled with their heartfelt parting with a
gallant soldier. Yet even this touched him no longer. He cast a glance
at the house and the room where he had parted from her, at the slope
from which she had passed--and rode away.
And then, as his figure disappeared down the road, the restrained
commentary of wonder, surmise, and criticism broke out:--
"It must have been something mighty bad, for the old man, who swears
by him, looked rather troubled. And it was deuced queer, you know, this
changing clothes with somebody, just before this surprise!"
"Nonsense! It's something away back of that! Didn't you hear the old man
say that the orders for him to report himself came from Washington LAST
NIGHT? No!"--the speaker lowered his voice--"Strangeways says that he
had regularly sold himself out to one of them d----d secesh woman spies!
It's the old Marc Antony business over again!"
"Now I think of it," said a younger subaltern, "he did seem mightily
taken with one of those quadroons or mulattoes he issued orders against.
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