Passing the officers' headquarters he heard the raucous laugh of Wainwright, and caught a glimpse of his fat head and neck through a window. His heart sank! Wainwright was back! Then he had been sent for, and they must be going that night!
He fled to the Hostess' House and was silent and distraught as he ate his supper. Suppose Wainwright should come in while they were there and see Ruth and spoil those last few minutes together? The thought was unbearable.
Nobody wanted much supper and they wandered outside in the soft evening air. There was a hushed sorrow over everything. Even the roughest soldiers were not ashamed of tears. Little faded mothers clung to big burly sons, and their sons smoothed their gray hair awkwardly and were not ashamed. A pair of lovers sat at the foot of a tree hand in hand and no one looked at them, except in sympathy. There were partings everywhere. A few wives with little children in their arms were writing down hurried directions and receiving a bit of money; but most desolate of all was the row of lads lined up near the station whose friends were gone, or had not come at all, and who had to stand and endure the woe of others.
"Couldn't we walk out of camp?" asked Ruth suddenly. "Must we go on that awful trolley? Last night everybody was weeping. I wanted to weep, too. It is only a few steps from the end of camp to our quarters. Or is it too far for you, Mrs. Cameron?"
"Nothing is too far to-night so I may be with my boy one hour longer."
"Then we must start at once," said Cameron, "there is barely time to reach the outskirts before the hour when all visitors must be out of camp. It is over three miles, mother."
"I can walk it if Ruth can," said the mother smiling bravely.
He drew an arm of each within his own and started off, glad to be out of Wainwright's neighborhood, gladder still to have a little longer with those he loved.
Out through the deserted streets they passed, where empty barracks were being prepared for the next draft men; past the Tank Headquarters and the colored barracks, the storehouses and more barracks just emptied that afternoon into troop trains; out beyond the great laundry and on up the cinder road to the top of the hill and the end of the way.
There at last, in sight of the Military Police, pacing back and forth at the entrance to camp, with the twinkling lights of the village beyond, and the long wooded road winding back to camp, they paused to say good-bye. The cinder path and the woods at its edge made a blot of greenish black against a brilliant stormy sky. The sun was setting like a ball of fire behind the trees, and some strange freak of its rays formed a golden cross resting back against the clouds, its base buried among the woods, its cross bar rising brilliant against the black of a thunder cloud.