m coming evil. Another item added to
retributive justice.

'I thought you knew'--flashing the diamond on his hand in the
moonlight--'somewhere beyond the lines yonder a lady wears the companion
to this--or did, last spring.'

And George's spirits rose immensely thereupon.

The old, miserable monotony of camp life began again. It wore on him,
this machine-like existence, this blind, unquestioning obedience, days
and nights of purposeless waiting, brightened by neither hope nor
memory. He had hated it before; now he loathed it with the whole
strength of his unrestful soul. But it did him good. Brought face to
face with his life, he met the chances of his future like the man he
was, and at last, out of the blackness end desolation, came the comfort
of conquering small, every-day temptations, more of a comfort than we
are willing to admit at first thought.

This bare, unbroken life cuts straight down to the marrow of a man.
Stripped of all conventionalities, individuals come out broadly. The
true metal shows itself grandly in this strange, impartial throwing
together of social elements--this commingling on one level of all ranks
and conditions of men in the same broad glare of every-day trial,
unmodified by any of society's false lights. The factitious barriers of
rank once broken over, all early associations, whether of workshop or
college, go for nought, or, rather, for what they are worth. The _man_
gravitates to his proper place, whether he makes himself known with the
polished sentences of the school, or in terse, sinewy, workman's talk.
And through the months Moore learned to respect humanity as it showed
itself, made gentler to every one, driven out from himself, perhaps, by
the bitterness and darkness that centred in his own heart. It was a new
phase of life for him, but he bated his haughty Southern exclusiveness
to meet it. Before, he had kept himself aloof as far as the surroundings
allowed from those about him--now, his never-failing good nature, his
flow of song and story, his untiring physical endurance, all upborne by
a certain proud delicacy and reticence, made him a general favorite. But
he hailed as a relief the long, exhausting marches that came after a
while. Bodily weariness stood in the place of head or heart exercise,
and men falling asleep on the spot where they halted for the night,
after a day in the clinging Virginia mud, had little time for the noisy
outbreaks that filled the evenings in days