I been so loath to part with her whom I scarce had met? What was it in her that had fixed my attention? What allure? What unusual quality? What grace of mind or person?

A slender, grey-eyed gypsy-thing in rags! And I could no longer rid my mind of her!

What possessed me? To what lesser nature in me was such a woman as this appealing? I would have been ashamed to have any officer or man of my corps see me abroad in company with her. I knew it well enough. I knew that if in this girl anything was truly appealing to my unquiet heart I should silence even the slightest threat of any response — discourage, ignore, exterminate the last unruly trace of sentiment in her regard.

Yet I remained there motionless, thinking, thinking — her faded rosebud