"Were you going away, Douw, without coming to see me--to say good-by?" asked Daisy, with a soft reproach in her voice. "Your mother tells me of your starting to-morrow--for the battle." I took her hand, and, despite my mother's presence, continued to hold it in mine. This was bold, but there was little enough of bravery in my words. "Yes, we go to-morrow; I wanted to come--all day I have been thinking of little else--yet I feared that my visit might--might----" Very early in this tale it was my pride to explain that my mother was a superior woman. Faults of temper she may have had, and eke narrow prejudices on sundry points. But she had also great good sense, which she showed now by leaving the room. "I came to you instead, you see," my dear girl said, trying to smile, yet with a quivering lip; "I could not have slept, I could not have borne to live almost, it seems, if I had let you ride off without a word, without a sign." We stood thus facing each other for a moment--mumbling forth some commonplaces of explanation, she looking intently into my eyes. Then with a sudden deep outburst of anguish, moaning piteously, "_Must you truly go_?" she came, nay, almost fell into my arms, burying her face on my shoulder and weeping violently. It is not meet that I should speak much of the hour that followed. I would, in truth, pass over it wholly in silence--as being too sacred a thing for aught of disclosure or speculation--were it not that some might, in this case, think lightly of the pure and good woman who, unduly wrung by years of grief, disappointment, and trial, now, from very weariness of soul, sobbed upon my breast. And that would be intolerable. We sat side by side in the little musty parlor. I did not hold her hand, or so much as touch her gown with my knee or foot.