sought to make his path easy for him. But he was certainly deep
in her confidence even then, and shrewd enough to take advantage of it.
He had frequently written before, and it was not unnatural he should
write after the regiment left for the front--letters which intimated
that he was far from content among his associates, which hinted at
distress of mind because he daily saw and heard of things which would
cause bitter sorrow to those who had the right to command his most
faithful services. He had shown deep emotion when informed of her
engagement to Mr. Abbot, and it was hard to confess this. It soon became
apparent to her that he desired her to understand that he deeply loved
her, and was deterred only by his poverty from seeking her hand. Then
came letters that were constructed with a skill that would have excited
the envy of an Iago, hinting at other correspondences on part of Mr.
Abbot and of neglects and infidelities that made her proud heart sore.
Still there were no direct accusations; but, taken in connection with
the long periods of apparent silence on his part and the unloverlike
tone of his letters when they reached her, the hints went far to
convince her that she had promised her hand to a careless and
indifferent wooer. This palliated in her mind the disloyalty of which
she was guilty towards him, and at last, in the summer just gone, she
had actually written to Mr. Hollins for proofs of his assertions. For a
long time--for weeks--he seemed to hold back, but at last there came
three letters, written in a pretty, girlish hand. She shrank from
opening them, but Mr. Hollins, in his accompanying lines, simply bade
her have no such compunction. They had been read by half a dozen men in
camp already, and the girl was some village belle who possibly knew no
better. She did read, just ten lines, of one of them, and was shamed at
her act as she was incensed at her false _fiance_. The ten lines were
sweet, pure, maidenly words of trust and gratitude for his praise of her
heroic brother; and in them and through them it was easy for the woman
nature to read the budding love of a warm-hearted and innocent girl.

This roused her wrath, and would have led to denunciation of him but for
the news of his wounds and danger. Then came other letters from Hollins,
hinting at troubles in which he was involved; and then, right after
Antietam, he seemed to cease to write for a fortnight, and his next
letter spoke of total change