The Coward: A Novel of Society and the Field in 1863Morford, Henry
History
The Coward: A Novel of Society and the Field in 1863
Morford, Henry
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Fiction
"Did you notice that?" asked the keen-witted Captain, returning to the
charge, as a repulsed soldier should always do. "His name is _not_
Townsend, and he has not been long in the habit of being called by it; for
it was forgetfulness that made him wait for it to be repeated three times!"
There was triumph in the tone of the Captain, now; and there was every
thing but triumph in that of Margaret Hayley as she leaned heavily on his
arm and said:
"Pray do not say any thing more about it! That man is nothing to me. Let us
go back to the house."
"Wait one moment! I am going to do something to satisfy myself. Do you see
that handkerchief? Sometimes initials tell a story that trunks and
hotel-books do not."
The lawyer had thrown off his coat upon the chair behind him--a blue
flannel coat, half military, which both remembered to have seen him wear
after changing clothes from the accident at the pool. From the
breast-pocket a white handkerchief hung temptingly almost half way out, and
it was towards that that the hand of the officer dived downward. The owner
of the coat was some distance away, following up one of his flying balls,
and was not likely to see the examination made of his personal property, if
it was done with quick hand and eye.
"Hector Coles, you would not do _that_!"
But she spoke too late. With the stereotyped lie on his lips that has been
made the excuse for so many wrongs and scoundrelisms during all this
unfortunate struggle, "All is fair in war-time!" the Captain whipped out
the handkerchief, turned it quickly from corner to corner, glancing it to
the light as he did so, and then as quickly returned it to the pocket, long
before the owner had returned from watching the effect of his shot.
Margaret Hayley had not intended to join in the reprehensible act, but she
involuntarily did so, and she as well as the officer saw the initials "H.
T." elaborately embroidered in red silk in one of the corners. It is not
too much to say that a pang of joy went through her heart at that
refutation of the Captain's mean suspicions and that evidence to her own
mind that the man in whom she had become so suddenly and unaccountably
interested was playing no game of deceit and treachery. "H. T." were the
initials, Horace Townsend was the name that he had given her, and there
could be no doubt whatever of the truth of his statement.
Captain Hector Coles did not seem by any means so well satisfied with the
result of his researches. Something very like a scowl answered the look of
indignation upon Margaret Hayley's face, as he said:
"Humph! well, he has been keen enough, it seems, to mismark his
handkerchief too!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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