It was as though when writing Melanie, Ashley tried to ignore the

war altogether, and sought to draw about the two of them a magic

circle of timelessness, shutting out everything that had happened

since Fort Sumter was the news of the day. It was almost as if he

were trying to believe there wasn't any war. He wrote of books

which he and Melanie had read and songs they had sung, of old

friends they knew and places he had visited on his Grand Tour.

Through the letters ran a wistful yearning to be back home at

Twelve Oaks, and for pages he wrote of the hunting and the long

rides through the still forest paths under frosty autumn stars,

the barbecues, the fish fries, the quiet of moonlight nights and

the serene charm of the old house.

She thought of his words in the letter she had just read: "Not

this! Never this!" and they seemed to cry of a tormented soul

facing something he could not face, yet must face. It puzzled her

for, if he was not afraid of wounds and death, what was it he

feared? Unanalytical, she struggled with the complex thought.

"The war disturbs him and he--he doesn't like things that disturb

him. . . . Me, for instance. . . . He loved me but he was afraid

to marry me because--for fear I'd upset his way of thinking and

living. No, it wasn't exactly that he was afraid. Ashley isn't a

coward. He couldn't be when he's been mentioned in dispatches and

when Colonel Sloan wrote that letter to Melly all about his

gallant conduct in leading the charge. Once he's made up his mind

to do something, no one could be braver or more determined but--

He lives inside his head instead of outside in the world and he

hates to come out into the world and-- Oh, I don't know what it

Is! If I'd just understood this one thing about him years ago, I

know he'd have married me."

She stood for a moment holding the letters to her breast, thinking

longingly of Ashley. Her emotions toward him had not changed

since the day when she first fell in love with him. They were the

same emotions that struck her speechless that day when she was

fourteen years old and she had stood on the porch of Tara and seen

Ashley ride up smiling, his hair shining silver in the morning

sun. Her love was still a young girl's adoration for a man she

could not understand, a man who possessed all the qualities she

did not own but which she admired. He was still a young girl's

dream of the Perfect Knight and her dream asked no more than

acknowledgment of his love, went no further than hopes of a kiss.

After reading the letters, she felt certain he did love her,

Scarlett, even though he had married Melanie, and that certainty

was almost all that she desired. She was still that young and

untouched. Had Charles with his fumbling awkwardness and his

embarrassed intimacies tapped any of the deep vein of passionate

feeling within her, her dreams of Ashley would not be ending with

a kiss. But those few moonlight nights alone with Charles had not

touched her emotions or ripened her to maturity. Charles had

awakened no idea of what passion might be or tenderness or true

Intimacy of body or spirit.

All that passion meant to her was servitude to inexplicable male

madness, unshared by females, a painful and embarrassing process

that led inevitably to the still more painful process of

childbirth. That marriage should be like this was no surprise to

her. Ellen had hinted before the wedding that marriage was

something women must bear with dignity and fortitude, and the

whispered comments of other matrons since her widowhood had

confirmed this. Scarlett was glad to be done with passion and

marriage.

She was done with marriage but not with love, for her love for

Ashley was something different, having nothing to do with passion

or marriage, something sacred and breathtakingly beautiful, an

emotion that grew stealthily through the long days of her enforced

silence, feeding on oft-thumbed memories and hopes.

She sighed as she carefully tied the ribbon about the packet,

wondering for the thousandth time just what it was in Ashley that

eluded her understanding. She tried to think the matter to some

satisfactory conclusion but, as always, the conclusion evaded her

uncomplex mind. She put the letters back in the lap secretary and

closed the lid. Then she frowned, for her mind went back to the

last part of the letter she had just read, to his mention of

Captain Butler. How strange that Ashley should be impressed by

something that scamp had said a year ago. Undeniably Captain

Butler was a scamp, for all that he danced divinely. No one but a

scamp would say the things about the Confederacy that he had said

at the bazaar.

She crossed the room to the mirror and patted her smooth hair

approvingly. Her spirits rose, as always at the sight of her

white skin and slanting green eyes, and she smiled to bring out

her dimples. Then she dismissed Captain Butler from her mind as

she happily viewed her reflection, remembering how Ashley had

always liked her dimples. No pang of conscience at loving another

woman's husband or reading that woman's mail disturbed her

pleasure in her youth and charm and her renewed assurance of

Ashley's love.

She unlocked the door and went down the dim winding stair with a

light heart. Halfway down she began singing "When This Cruel War