He also sealed up his purse, and left a
memorandum that the contents should be given to disabled soldiers of his
brigade upon their being invalided.
Then he took out Josephine's letter. "Poor coward," he said, "let me not
be unkind. See, I burn your letter, lest it should be found, and disturb
the peace you prize so highly. I, too, shall soon be at peace." He
lighted the letter, and dropped it on the ground: it burned slowly away.
He eyed it, despairingly. "Ay," said he, "you perish, last record of an
unhappy love: and even so pass away my life; my hopes of glory, and my
dreams of love; it all ends to-day: at nine and twenty."
He put his white handkerchief to his eyes. Josephine had given it him.
He cried a little.
When he had done crying, he put his white handkerchief in his bosom, and
the whole man was transformed beyond language to express. Powder does
not change more when it catches fire. He rose that moment and went like
a flash of lightning out of the tent. The next, he came down between the
lines of the strong column that stood awaiting orders in Death's Alley.
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