The Washington times., 1913-09-15
CHAPTER XXX.
The Robings of Glory.

l 4uc nouAuSS VI SioAy.
wv s'.;%:s s.s;,ss the .ss ssss,.l =: ::
one morning in April al.
most a year after the battle OF Spott.
sylvania Court House.
The young staff officer, who had beer
promoted to his present rank in tbs
checked his horse abruptly and saluted
At rapid Sallop he had come back
| from the front. where fierce fighting
! was still going on. The emergency ad.
| mitted Of no delay or he would have
spun the moments into hours before ap.
preaching his great commander-in-chie1
with such message as he had to de-
liver.
The year that had elapsed had been
| one Of ruin and disaster. There had
been victories. to be sure. Never had
| the army Of northern Virginia fought
more superbly, never had the skill Of its
commander been more wonderfully ex.
hibited than in the long death grapple
from the North Anna to Petersburg, and
| in the race from Petersburg to Apo
mattox Starved and naked, worn away
by the attraction OF grand ceaseless
grinding and hammering, a mere hand
full stood at bay that sunny April morn
ing, striking in hopeless despair, but
with all the dash and daring Of old
hedlHSt d CiTCl0 VI eueullcS IndI TllReQ
around them as a pack Of wolves q dy-
ing lion.
From the east, from the west, from
the north, from the south came the roar
of battle. painf,,lly nearing the center
where Lee stood with his staff. Behind
, them. miles away, lay pToa-ate,
ruined town-a once proud little capital
| in the ashes Of humiliation and dest-uc-
ton. Ahead Of them ran the mountains
| they longed to reach. to the south of
| them their brothers in arms were reel
ing back from the tremendous shocks of
Sherman. But between Lee and the
South, between Lee and the West. lay
the war dogs of the Union the quarry
that had been bounded from Ge.tys
burg to Five Forks was almost brought
down. Pressed from the rear, assailed
OF the right and left, with the way
Virginia was trying desperately to break
through anywhere. The wave of ad-
vance rolled on, but II was now a shall
low. seething spray about beaten to
pieces against the inexorable rocks of
an indomitable determination whose
name was Grant.
In all that fighting Grafton had borne
splendid part. He had participated in
the battle at the Crater at Petersburg.
He had charged with Gordon at Fort
Steadman. Carrying orders to his old
division commander he had fought with
Pickett at Five Forks. He had mar
rowly escaped capture with Ewell at
Sailors Creek. This morning Lee had
sent him forward to the front of the
line, where Gordon commanded, to find
how the battle went and what were the
chances of success.
Now he was coming back to tell his
chieftain That inevitable defeat. nay.
annihilation, stared him in the face and
could no longer be STAYED of even by
his genius and mis- army's courage.
Trr-f<, a,
had heard from Ariadne. She was well,
she was with Kathleen Manning, who
loved her. She longed to be with her
husband. She might have managed to
get pass through the President of the
United States, whose kindness to her
had never been forgotten; but Grafton,
with the deadly picture of starvation
and misery in Richmond constantly be-
fore him, had sunk his own desires in
her welfare and had peremptorily for
bidden her to seek to enter that doomed
town.
Unless a miracle from Heaven came to
pass the Confederacy was hopelessly
ruined when Lee essayed TO defend Pc
tersburg at the command of an exec,l-
tive who short-sightedlv valued a place
above an army. Grafton. for one. real
lied that the only hope was in foreign
intervention, which IL was now patent
would not take place.
Conditions were terrible in Richmond
in the summer and winter of 1854.
Ar1adne had suffered enough. and, al
though he would have given the world
TO have seen her, to have taken her in
his arms-now that he loved her-he
charged her with all the solemnitv that
In him lay 10 stay where she was and
wait. Because she loved him she obeyed
him.
Both the times he heard from her
through spies and secret service mes
sages her letters had been pleas that
she might come to him. and, although
his heart seconded the wish, he turned
deaf ear to the appeals. Thus, while
her husband starved and fought, while
her sisters sunk and died, Ariadne stay
ed In the little Pennsylvania town help
Ing Kathleen, who was now her staunch-
est friend, nurse back to health and
strength again Colonel Kirkwood who
was enabled to rejoin his regiment in
the fall.
Ariadne was comfortable enough in
body: she was not hungry nor ragged,
as were her Southern sisters; but, oh,
the anguish that she suffered at the
thought that she wanted for nothing
while they lacked ALL That she was
safe and happy and at ease while her
husband was in deadly peril from the
bullet or from disease, was a trial
harder to bear and worse than the pri-
walton Of the Siege. Thinking TO spare
her, he had laid the heaviest cross upon
her. That she bore Ii was an evidence
of her love for him.
Kathleen was consideration itself, love
itself: but nothing, nothing could make
Ariadne feel at home. Home is where
the heart is,' runs an old song, and
her heart was with Grafton alone. Each
bulletin of victory. each evidence of the
slow death Of the Confederacy, of the
approaching end of the great struggle
the utter deiea. OF those who thought
as she. filled her heart with sorrow.
Erect, undaunted still. she faced the