“And I know it can never come back,” he said, and he went on thinking as he looked at her.  “I wonder if you can know what it is to have somebody such a part of your life that you never hear a noble strain of music, never read a noble line of poetry, never catch a high mood from nature, nor from your own best thoughts—­that you do not imagine her by your side to share your pleasure in it all; that you make no effort to better yourself or help others; that you do nothing of which she could approve, that you are not thinking of her—­that really she is not the inspiration of it all.  That doesn’t come but once.  Think of having somebody so linked with your life, with what is highest and best in you, that, when the hour of temptation comes and overcomes, you are not able to think of her through very shame.  I wonder if he loved you that way.  I wonder if you know what such love is.”

“It never comes but once,” he said, in a low tone, that made Judith turn suddenly.  Her eyes looked as if they were not far from tears.

A tiny star showed in the pink glow over the west—­

    “Starlight, star bright!”

“Think of it.  For ten years I never saw the first star without making the same wish for you and me.  Why,” he went on, and stopped suddenly with a little shame at making the confession even to himself, and at the same time with an impersonal wonder that such a thing could be, “I used to pray for you always—­when I said my prayers—­actually.  And sometimes even now, when I’m pretty hopeless and helpless and moved by some memory, the old prayer comes back unconsciously and I find myself repeating your name.”

For the moment he spoke as though not only that old love, but she who had caused it, were dead, and the tone of his voice made her shiver.

And the suffering he used to get—­the suffering from trifles—­the foolish suffering from silly trifles!

He turned now, for he heard Judith walking toward him.  She was looking him straight in the eyes and was smiling strangely.

“I’m going to make you love me as you used to love me.”

Her lips were left half parted from the whisper, and he could have stooped and kissed her—­something that never in his life had he done—­he knew that—­but the old reverence came back from the past to forbid him, and he merely looked down into her eyes, flushing a little.

“Yes,” she said, gently.  “And I think you are just tall enough.”

In a flash her mood changed, and she drew his head down until she could just touch his forehead with her lips.  It was a sweet bit of motherliness—­no more—­and Crittenden understood and was grateful.

“Go home now,” she said.

VII

At Tampa—­the pomp and circumstance of war.