“Not now--not now,” she said, giving him her hand, which he seized and kissed fervently, and withdrew from the room. She bolted the door and gave herself up to the most intense thought. Assignment to duty with an expedition took Dr. Denslow away the next morning, without his being able to see her. When he returned a week later, he found this letter lying on his desk: MY VERY DEAR FRIEND: The declaration you honored me with making has been the subject of many hours of the most earnest consideration possible. I am certain that it si due to you and to the confession that you have made of your feelings, that I should in turn confess that I am deeply--what shall I say--INTERESTED in you? No; that is too prim and prudish a term. There is in you for me more than a mere attraction; I feel for you something deeper than even warm friendship. That you would make such a husband as I should cherish and honor, of whom I should be proud, and whose strong, kindly arms would be my secure support and protection until death claimed us, I have not the slightest doubt. But when I ask myself whether this is really love--the sacred, all-pervading passion which a woman should feel for the man to whom she gives herself, body and soul, I encounter the strongest doubts. These doubts have no reference to you--only to myself. I feel that it would be a degradation--a deep profanation--for me to give myself to you, without feeling in its entirety such a love as I have attempted to define. I have gone away from you because I want to consider this question and decide it with more calmness and impartiality than I can where I meet you daily, and daily receive some kindness from your hands. These and the magnetism of your presence are temptations which I fear might swerve me from my ideal, and possibly lead to a mistake which we both might ever afterward have reason to regret. I have, as you will be informed, accepted a detail to one of the hospitals at Nashville. Do not write me, except to tell me of a change in your postoffice address. I will not write you, unless I have something of special moment to tell you. Believe me, whatever may betide, at least your very sincere friend, Rachel Bond. Chapter XVIII. Secret Service. The flags of war like storm-birds fly, The charging trumpets blow, Yet rolls no thunder in the sky, No earthquake strives below. And calm and patient Nature keeps Her ancient promise well, Though o'er her bloom and greenness sweeps The battle's breath of hell. Ah! eyes may well be full of tears, And hearts with hate are hot, But even-paced come round the years, And Nature changes not. She meets with smiles out bitter grief, With songs our groans of pain; She mocks with tint of flower and leaf The war-field's crimson stain. --Whittier's “Battle Autumn of 1862”