"Yer uniform?" she gasped, stepping back. Darby was not quick always,
and he looked down at his clothes and then at her again,
his dazed brain wondering.
"Whar's yer uniform?" she asked.
"At home," he said, quietly, still wondering. She seemed to catch some hope.
"Yer got a furlough?" she said, more quietly, coming a little nearer to him,
and her eyes growing softer.
"Got a furlough?" he repeated to gain time for thought. "I -- I ----"
He had never thought of it before; the words in her letter flashed into
his mind, and he felt his face flush. He would not tell her a lie.
"No, I ain't got no furlough," he said, and paused whilst he tried
to get his words together to explain. But she did not give him time.
"What you doin' with them clo'se on?" she asked again.
"I -- I ----" he began, stammering as her suspicion dawned on him.
"You're a deserter!" she said, coldly, leaning forward, her hands clenched,
her face white, her eyes contracted.
"A what!" he asked aghast, his brain not wholly taking in her words.
"You're a deserter!" she said again -- "and -- a coward!"
All the blood in him seemed to surge to his head and leave his heart like ice.
He seized her arm with a grip like steel.
"Vashti Mills," he said, with his face white, "don't you say that to me --
if yer were a man I'd kill yer right here where yer stan'!"
He tossed her hand from him, and turned on his heel.
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