“Oh, Stephen,” she said, “how sad he looked!”

He was close to her, at her side.  And he answered her in the earnest tone which she knew so well.

“Virginia, if I could have had what I most wished for in the world, I should have asked that you should know Abraham Lincoln.”

Then she dropped her eyes, and her breath came quickly.

“I—­I might have known,” she answered, “I might have known what he was.  I had heard you talk of him.  I had seen him in you, and I did not know.  Do you remember that day when we were in the summer-house together at Glencoe, long ago?  When you had come back from seeing him?”

“As yesterday,” he said.

“You were changed then,” she said bravely.  “I saw it.  Now I understand.  It was because you had seen Mr. Lincoln.”

“When I saw him,” said Stephen, reverently, “I knew how little and narrow I was.”

Then, overcome by the incense of her presence, he drew her to him until her heart beat against his own.  She did not resist, but lifted her face to him, and he kissed her.

“You love me, Virginia!” he cried.

“Yes, Stephen,” she answered, low, more wonderful in her surrender than ever before.  “Yes—­dear.”  Then she hid her face against his blue coat.  “I—­I cannot help it.  Oh, Stephen, how I have struggled against it!  How I have tried to hate you, and couldn’t.  No, I couldn’t.  I tried to insult you, I did insult you.  And when I saw how splendidly you bore it, I used to cry.”  He kissed her brown hair.

“I loved you through it all,” he said.

“Virginia!”

“Yes, dearest.”

“Virginia, did you dream of me?”

She raised her head quickly, and awe was in her eyes.  “How did you know?”

“Because I dreamed of you,” he answered.  And those dreams used to linger with me half the day as I went about my work.  I used to think of them as I sat in the saddle on the march.”

“I, too, treasured them,” she said.  “And I hated myself for doing it.”

“Virginia, will you marry me?”

“Yes.”

“To-morrow?”

“Yes, dear, to-morrow.”  Faintly, “I have no one but you—­now.”

Once more he drew her to him, and she gloried in his strength.

“God help me to cherish you, dear,” he said, “and guard you well.”

She drew away from him, gently, and turned toward the window.

“See, Stephen,” she cried, “the sun has come out at last.”

For a while they were silent, looking out; the drops glistened on blade and leaf, and the joyous new green of the earth entered into their hearts.

CHAPTER XVI

ANNAPOLIS

It was Virginia’s wish, and was therefore sacred.  As for Stephen, he little cared whither they went.  And so they found themselves on that bright afternoon in mid-April under the great trees that arch the unpaved streets of old Annapolis.