Sitting by the open window and looking out over the bustling street Major Abbot later in the evening is trying to collect his senses and convince himself that he really is himself.  “It never rains but it pours,” and events have been pouring upon him with confusing rapidity.  Early in the summer he had noted an odd constraint in the tone of the few letters that came from Miss Winthrop.  That they were few and far between was not in itself a matter to give him much discomfort.  From boyhood he had been accustomed to the household cry that at some time in the future ­the distant future ­Viva Winthrop was to be his wife.  He had known her quite as long as he had been conscious of his own existence, and the relations between the families were such as to render the alliance desirable.  Excellent friends were the young people as they grew to years of discretion, and, in the eyes of parents and intimate acquaintances, no formal betrothal was ever necessary, simply because “it was such an understood thing.”  For more than a year previous to the outbreak of the war, however, Miss Winthrop was in Europe, and much of the time, it was said, she had been studying.  So had Mr. Hollins, who withdrew from Harvard in his second year and read law assiduously in the office of Winthrop & Lawrence, and then went abroad for his health.  They returned on the Cunarder in the early part of April, and Mrs. Winthrop was ill from the time she set foot on the saloon deck until they sighted the State House looming through the fog, and nothing could have been more fortunate than that Mr. Hollins was with them ­he was so attentive, so very thoughtful.  When he wasn’t doing something for her he was promenading with Viva on deck or bundling that young lady in warm wraps and hedging her in a sunny corner.  Pity that Mr. Hollins was so poor and rather obscure in his family ­his immediate family ­connections.  His mother was Mr. Winthrop’s first cousin, and she had been very fond of Mr. Winthrop when she was a child, and he had befriended her son when a friend was needed.  She died years ago, and no one knew just when her husband followed her.  He was a person no one ever met, said Mrs. Winthrop, a man who had a singular career, was an erratic genius, and very dissipated.  But he was a very fascinating person, she understood, in his younger days, and his son was most talented and deserving, but entirely out of the question as an intimate or associate.  Viva would not be apt to see anything of him after their return; but the question never seemed to occur to her, how much had the daughter been influenced by their frequent companionship abroad?  It really mattered nothing.  Viva was to marry Revere Abbot, as Mrs. Winthrop preferred to call him, and such was distinctly the family understanding.  Miss Winthrop had been home but a few weeks when all the North was thrilled by the stirring call for volunteers, and the old Bay State responded, as was to be expected of her.  In the ­th Massachusetts were a score of officers, as has been said, whose names were as old as the colony and whose family connections made them thoroughly well known to each other at the earliest organization of the command.  That Paul Abbot should be among the first to seek a commission as a junior lieutenant was naturally expected.  Then with all possible hesitancy and delicacy, after a feminine council in the family, his mother asked him if he did not think there ought to be some distinct understanding about Viva Winthrop before he went away to the front.  The matter was something that he had thought of before she went to Europe, but believed then that it could wait, Now that she had returned, improved both physically and intellectually, Mr. Abbot had once or twice thought that it would not be long before he would be asked some such question as his mother now propounded, but again decided that it was a matter that could be deferred.  They had met with much hearty cordiality, and called each other Paul and Viva, as they had from babyhood, and then she had a round of social duties and he became absorbed in drills, day and night, and they saw very little of each other ­much less than was entirely satisfactory to the parental councils, and these were frequent.  While the masters of the households of Abbot and Winthrop seldom interchanged a word on the subject, they had their personal views none the less; and, as to the mothers, their hearts had long been set upon the match.  Miss Winthrop had abundant wealth in her own right.  Paul Abbot’s blood was blue as the doctrines of the Puritans.  Without being a beauty in face or form, Miss Winthrop was unquestionably distinguished-looking, and her reputation for a certain acerbity of temper and the faculty of saying cutting things did not materially lower her value in the matrimonial market.  There was, however, that constantly recurring statement, “Oh, she’s engaged to Paul Abbot,” and that, presumably, accounted for the lack of those attentions in society which are so intangible when assailed, and yet leave such a void when omitted.  Mrs. Abbot put it very plainly to Paul when she said: 

“Everybody considers her as virtually engaged to you and expects you to look after her.  That is why I say it is due to her that you should arrive at some understanding before your orders come.”

Paul had come up from camp that day ­a Saturday afternoon ­and he stood there in the old family gathering room, a very handsome young soldier.  He had listened in silence and respect while his mother spoke, but without much sign of responsive feeling.  When she had finished he looked her full in the face and quietly said: 

“And is there any other reason, mother?”

Mrs. Abbot flushed.  There was another reason, and one that after much mental dodging both she and Mrs. Winthrop had been compelled to admit to each other within a very few days.  Mr. Hollins was constantly finding means to come over to the city and see Miss Winthrop, and the ladies could not grapple with the intricacies of a military problem which permitted one officer to be in town three or four days a week and kept the others incessantly drilling at camp.  Mrs. Abbot, motherlike, had more than once suggested to her son that he ought to be able to visit town more frequently, and on his replying that it was simply impossible, and that none of the officers could leave their duties, had triumphantly pointed to Mr. Hollins.

“But he is quartermaster,” said Paul, “and has to come on business.”

“He manages to combine a good deal of pleasure with his business,” was the tentative response, and Abbot knew that he was expected to ask the nature of Mr. Hollins’s pleasures.  He was silent, however, much to his mother’s disappointment, for he had heard from other sources of the frequency with which Mr. Hollins and Miss Winthrop were seen together.  Finding that he would not ask, Mrs. Abbot was compelled to suppress the inclination she felt to have her suspicions dragged to light.  She wished he had more curiosity, or jealousy, or something; but in its absence she could only say,

“Well, I wish you were quartermaster, that’s all.”

And now that he had asked her if there were no other reason, there was something in his placid tone she did not like.  A month agone she wanted him to know of Mr. Hollins’s evident attentions to Genevieve because it would probably, or possibly, spur him into some exertion on his own account.  Now that she felt sure he had heard of it, and it had not spurred him, she was as anxious to conceal the fact that, both to Mrs. Winthrop and herself, these attentions were becoming alarming.  If he did not care for Viva, the chances were that so soon as he found that public attention had been drawn to her acceptance of such devotions, Paul would drop the matter entirely, and that would be a calamity.  Knowing perfectly well, therefore, what was in his mind when he asked the question, Mrs. Abbot parried the thrust.  Though she flushed, and her voice quivered a little, she looked him straight in the face.

“There is, Paul.  I ­think she has a right to expect it of you; that ­that she does expect it.”

Abbot looked with undisguised perplexity into his mother’s face.

“You surprise me very much, mother; I cannot, see how Viva would betray such an idea, even if she had it; it is not like her.”

“Women see these things where men cannot,” was the somewhat sententious reply.  “Besides, Paul ­”

“Well, mother, besides ?”

“Mrs. Winthrop has told me as much.”

That evening, before returning to camp, Lieutenant Abbot went round the square ­or what is the Bostonian equivalent therefor ­and surprised Miss Winthrop with a call.  He told her what he had not told his mother, that Colonel Raymond that morning received a telegram from Washington saying that on the following Tuesday they must be in readiness to start.

“We have been good friends always, Viva,” he said; “but you have been something more to me than that.  I did not mean to make so sudden an avowal, but soldiers have no time to call their own just now, and every hour has been given up to duty with the regiment.  Now this sharp summons comes and I must go.  If I return, shall we ­” (he had almost said, “shall we fulfil our manifest destiny, and make our parents happy?” but had sense enough to realize that she was entitled to a far more personal proposition).  He broke off nervously.

“You have always been so dear to me, Viva.  Will you be my wife?”

She was sitting on the sofa, nervously twisting the cords of a fan in and out among her slender white fingers.  Her eyes were downcast and her cheeks suffused.  For an instant she looked up and a question seemed trembling on her lips.  She was a truthful woman and no coward.  There was something she was entitled to know, something the heart within her craved to know, yet she knew not how to ask, or, if she did, was too proud to frame the words, to plead for that thing of all others which a woman prizes and glories in, yet will never knowingly beg of any man ­his honest and outspoken love.  She looked down again, silent.

His tone softened and his voice quivered a little as he bent over her.

“Has any one else won away the heart of my little girl-love?” he asked.  “We were sweethearts so long, Viva; but have you learned to care for some other?”

“No.  It ­it is not that.”

“Then cannot you find a little love for me left over from the childish days?  You were so loyal to me then, Viva ­and it would make our home people so happy.”

“I suppose it might ­them.”

“Then promise me, dear; I go so soon, and ­”

She interrupted him now, impetuously.  Looking straight up into his eyes, she spoke in low, vehement tone, rapidly, almost angrily.

“On this condition, Paul; on this condition.  You ask me to be your wife and ­and I suppose it is what is expected of us ­what you have expected all along, and are entitled to an answer now.  Promise me this, if ever you have a thought for another woman, if ever you feel in your heart that perhaps another girl would make you happier, or if ­if you feel the faintest growing fancy for another, that you will tell me.”

He smiled gravely as he encircled her in his arm.  She drew back, but he held her.

“Why, Viva, I have never had a thought for any other girl.  I simply thought you might care for some one more than you did for me.  It is settled, then ­I promise,” and he bent and softly kissed her.

They met again ­twice ­before the regiment took the cars.  It had been settled that no announcement of the engagement should be made, but there are some secrets mothers cannot keep, and there were not lacking men and women to obtrude premature “congratulations” even on the day she came with mothers, sisters, cousins, and sweethearts by the score to witness the presentation of colors and say adieu.  That afternoon the regimental quartermaster returned from the city after a stay of thirty-six hours, thirty of which were unauthorized, and it was rumored that Colonel Raymond was very angry and had threatened extreme measures.  It was this prospect, possibly, that shrouded Mr. Hollins’s face in gloom, but most people were disposed to think that he had taken the engagement very much to heart.  There were many who considered that, despite the fact of his lack of fortune, birth, and “position,” Mr. Hollins had been treated very shabbily by the heiress.  There were a few who said that but for his “lacks” she would have married him.  What she herself said was something that caused Mr. Abbot a good deal of wonderment and reflection.

“Paul, I want you to promise me another thing.  Mr. Hollins has very few friends in the regiment.  He is poor, sensitive, and he feels it keenly.  He is our kinsman, though distant, and he placed me under obligations abroad by his devotion to mother, and his courtesy to me when we needed attention.  He thinks you dislike him, as well as many of the others.  Remember what he is to us, and how hard a struggle he has had, and be kind to him ­for me.”

And though his college remembrances of Mr. Hollins were not tinged with romance, Paul Abbot was too glad and proud in the thought of going to the front ­too happy and prosperous, perhaps, to feel anything but pity for the quartermaster’s isolation.  He made the promise, and found its fulfilment, before they had been away a fortnight, a very irksome thing.  Hollins fairly lived at his tent and better men kept away.  Gradually they had drifted apart.  Gradually the feeling of coldness and aversion had become so marked that he could not conceal it; and finally, after one of the frequent lapses of which the quartermaster was guilty, there had come rupture of all social relations, and the only associate left to Mr. Hollins was the strange character whom he had foisted upon the regiment at its organization ­the quondam quartermaster-sergeant, Rix.

But in all the marching and fighting of the battle summer of ’62, these things were of less account than they had been during the inaction of the winter and early spring, until, at the Monocacy, Mr. Abbot’s curiosity was excited by the singular language used by Rix when ordered under guard.  What could such a man as he have to do with the affairs, personal or professional, of the officers of the regiment?  It was rabid nonsense ­idle boasting, no doubt; and yet the new-made major found that melodramatic threat recurring to his mind time and again.

Another thing that perplexed him was the fact already alluded to, that during the winter Viva’s letters, never too frequent or long, had begun to grow longer as to interval and shorter as to contents.  He made occasional reference to the fact, but was referred to the singular circumstance that “he began it.”  Matters were mended for a while, then drifted into the old channel again.  Then came the stirring incidents of June; the sharp, hard marches of July and August; the thrilling battles of Cedar Mountain and Second Bull Run; and he felt that his letters were hardly missed.  Then came the dash at Turner’s Gap; his wounds, rest, recovery, and promotion.  But there was silence at home.  He had not missed her letters before.  Now he felt that they ought to come, and had written more than once to say so.

And now, alone in his room, he is trying to keep cool and clear-headed; to fathom the mystery of his predicament before going to his father and telling him that between Genevieve Winthrop and himself there has arisen a cloud which at any moment may burst in storm.

Her letter ­the first received since Antietam ­he has read over time and again.  It must be confessed that there is a good deal therein to anger an honest man, and Abbot believes he is entitled to that distinction: 

“You demand the reason for my silence, and shall have it.  I did not wish to endanger your recovery, and so have kept my trouble to myself, but now I write to tell you that the farce is ended.  You have utterly broken your promise; I am absolved from mine.  The fact that you could find time to write day after day to Miss Warren, and neglect me for weeks, would in itself be justification for demanding my release from an engagement you have held so lightly.  But that you should have sought and won another’s love even while your honor was pledged to me, is more than enough.  I do not ask release.  I break the bond ­once and for all.

“You will have no place to receive your letters at the front.  They, with your ring, and certain gifts with which you have honored me from time to time, will be found in a packet which is this day forwarded to your mother.

“GENEVIEVE WINTHROP.”

Abbot is seated with his head buried in his hands.  That name again! the girl who fainted at sight of him! the old man who was prostrate at his denial on the Monocacy! the picture of himself in her desk! and now, this bitter, insulting letter from the woman who was to have been his wife!  Rix’s words at the field hospital! ­what in Heaven’s name can it all mean?  What network of crime and mystery is this that is thrown around him?

There is a sudden knock at the door ­a negro waiter with a telegram: 

“POINT OF ROCKS, MD., Oct. ­, 1862.

“Major PAUL R. ABBOT,
Willard’s Hotel, Washington: 

“Hollins still missing; believed to have followed you to
Washington.  Use every effort to secure arrest.

“PUTNAM.”