It did not occur to Scarlett that the person she could most confide in, had a rapport been built long before now, was a man surely by now to be ousted by Charleston society. It did not - for Scarlett did not want to indulge that side of her character. She would rather it be gone!

Instead, Scarlett met Ashley out in the front where he had ridden, up to see her folks, back from wherever he had come, and he dismounted and handed the reins to a slave.

"I gather you saw Melanie," said Ashley.

"Yes. She is much in good spirits," Scarlett nodded, "I fear that Atlanta is too busy… she is surely better in the country. I must write to her, that she must stay - of course, if it wouldn't be putting Aunt Pittypat without."

"You are kind to stay with her," Ashley nodded, and stood taller over her, "She appreciates company - every young woman does."

Scarlett, looking up at Ashley through her lashes, thought all this was a farce.

"Ashley, I've been thinking," Scarlett hoped to keep it up, lest he see something within her that was decidedly not in Scarlett's character, "This war… "

"My dear, you need not worry," Ashley looked down at her, "Our people are a tireless people. And they mean to put up a brave fight."

Already, he doubted, Scarlett knew as she watched him. And when he glanced to the fields of Tara, and inhaled her rich scent, he knew as she did that all this would be gone, this way of life, it was on the edges of his refined mind for he loved books and so soon to the beginning he would know.

"Ashley, I must ask you something," Scarlett stuttered, "And I ask it - as if in one of your books we between us imagined it is not quite real - not quite worth discussing… "

Ashley frowned, more curious than suspicious, "Yes, Scarlett?"

"I was thinking," began Scarlett, in her trepidation, "How difficult it is to know oneself."

"Ah, but Scarlett," Ashley smiled, with an understanding of himself of the same, that partook in that journey as reflected in her eyes, "This war will take its march, and yet after it all we may never know ourselves. That, you may consider, is the war we will never win."

"I must," Scarlett pleaded, looking into his hazy eyes she fancied as golden, "I must know myself. For I do not consider myself currently living. It is - "

She paused, for at such a juncture, she needed to assure herself that her listener truly was listening, with each bend that she began her spiel.

"Ashley, I am listless," Scarlett lay her palms open, "I am not living, I am not feeling. I am touched by the sunshine of Tara and I feel nothing, but I know I do. I should be hating myself for not feeling, but it is the one undercurrent I can count on to lead me through every day. I must know. I must know why - why I cannot feel."

Ashley stepped closer, and frowned down at her.

"Scarlett, you are too young, but when you are older you will know," spoke Ashley, in the curl of his hair and lips, "There is much still to know, come what may."

"Oh, that's heartless," Scarlett shook her head, and shook in her body, in her vigor that Ashley knew of Scarlett's temper, "I could not - I have no patience. I could not wait. I believe this life is over - just when I had started getting used to it - and I have spent my time believing it over as I lived it - it is only when it is about to be gone, I grasp the meaning of the love. The knowing that it may all end someday."

Ashley, in spite of his straight back, his earnestness, his desire on any part accounted to his behavior, moved little in that ejaculation.

"You do feel - as I do," Ashley hesitated, "And perhaps it is with great misgivings that you look back. I do not wish to look back either, Scarlett. There has been many a time when I thought our lives would change, and errant upon it, a mustering of the future that might take wings. But looking back is the pride and the prize. When you step through that door, you know only the past, and can be complete."

Ashley darkened in the sunshine at his back.

"You must remember, Scarlett. You must think on the good times, even if they never remain - "

"Oh, how you don't understand me at all," Scarlett wanted to rage, "How little you understand of me. And how much you understand of Scarlett is nonsense at all."

But Scarlett nodded, let the veil fall over her eyes, shielded by politeness as to bid him a good day, and all silence that left her breath heaving, and the hooves of his horse galloping away.

"He is no knight in shining armor," Scarlett shook, "To think myself vulnerable with anyone is an insult. How could he not know - but then, he knows Tara - not my Tara - and oh, how I long for someone from those days to know what I meant."

Scarlett turned to the porch, and sat upon it, and adjusted her hoops, and heard those hooves which were not Ashley's and the flash of red on the horizon, and the volume which belonged to the riders.

"It is beginning," Scarlett told herself, preparing herself to begin the journey, "Oh, how I am ready. But not for this - at this, the crucial juncture - I return to my life more miserable than this. For as Ashley did not know how to conduct himself after the war - I no longer know what it is after my war, in a different place, a different time, and where so few casualties occured as for it to have only happened in my mind."

The Tarleton twins rode forth, fresh from their expulsion from Virginia University, hailing her with their hats from afar, stamping up the path of Tara with their little dogs in hot pursuit.

"I could not find no succor back home," Scarlett smiled, at the twins who were gaining ground to greet her, still so far away, "I am the only one, it seems, who cannot move out of the past. And yet, my iron will is forged from facing the future. I am better off for having never known either. This sunlight - "

Here, Scarlett adjusted her hat, for ladies must be sure to keep their face out of the sun, and Mammy was sure to be pursing her lips, expecting Polk to lay the table for two more places.

" - this sunlight is all that remains, let it bleach into my soul, let it see that I am as fragile as glass," Scarlett widened her smile, and as the Tarleton twins hailed to, she met them on the stoop, and knew no more.