CHAPTER XIV.
The tremendous exodus continued; regiment after regiment packed knapsacks, struck tents, loaded their waggons and marched back through the mud toward Alexandria, where transports were waiting in hundreds.
The 3rd Zouaves were scheduled to leave early.

Celia had only a few hours now and then in camp with husband and son.

Once or twice they came to the hospital in the bright spring weather where new blossoms on azalea and jasmine perfumed the fields and flowering peach orchards turned all the hills and valleys pink.
Walking with her husband and son that last lovely evening before the regiment left, a hand of each clasped in her own, she strove very hard to keep up the gaiety of appearances, tried with all her might to keep back the starting tears, steady the lip that quivered, the hands that trembled locked in theirs.
They were walking together in a secluded lane that led from behind the Farm Hospital barns to a little patch of woodland through which a clear stream sparkled, a silent, intimate, leafy oasis amid an army-ridden desert, where there was only a cow to stare at them, knee deep in young mint, only a shy cardinal bird to interrupt them with its exquisite litany.
Their talk had been of Paige and Marye, of Paigecourt and the advisability of selling all stock, dismissing the negroes, and closing the place with the exception of the overseer's house.

And Celia had made arrangements to attend to it.
"I certainly do despise travelling," she said, "but while I'm so near, I reckon I'd better use my pass and papers and try to go through to Paigecourt.

It's just as well to prepare for the impossible, I suppose." Colonel Craig polished his eye-glasses, adjusted them, and examined the official papers that permitted his wife to go to her estate, pack up certain family papers, discharge the servants, close the house, and return through the Union lines carrying only personal baggage.
He said without enthusiasm: "It's inside their lines.