at we were. It might stop him from
doing something--mad. Why didn't you tell him so? Why didn't you think
of it?"

"My dear little child, we are about to have a battle. I should like to
carry some honor and truth into it."

"Where is he?" continued Charlie, unconvinced and unappeased. "I want to
see him. Is he at the head of the column? I want to speak to him, just
one word. He won't hurt me."

She suddenly spurred her horse, wheeled into the fields, and dashed
onward. Fitz Hugh was lounging in his saddle, and sombrely surveying the
passing column, when she galloped up to him.

"Carrol!" she said, in a choked voice, reining in by his side, and
leaning forward to touch his sleeve.

He threw one glance at her--a glance of aversion, if not of downright
hatred, and turned his back in silence.

"He is my husband, Carrol," she went on rapidly. "I knew you didn't
understand it. I ought to have written you about it. I thought I would
come and tell you before you did anything absurd. We were married as
soon as he heard that his wife was dead."

"What is the use of this?" he muttered hoarsely. "She is not dead. I
heard from her a week ago. She was living a week ago."

"Oh, Carrol!" stammered Charlie. "It was some mistake then. Is it
possible! And he was so sure! But he can get a divorce, you know. She
abandoned him. Or _she_ can get one. No, _he_ can get it--of course,
when she abandoned him. But, Carrol, she _must_ be dead--he was _so_
sure."

"She is _not_ dead, I tell you. And there can be no divorce. Insanity
bars all claim to a divorce. She is in an asylum. She had to leave him,
and then she went mad."

"Oh, no, Carrol, it is all a mistake; it is not so. Carrol," she
murmured in a voice so faint that he could not help glancing at her,
half in fury and half in pity. She was slowly falling from her horse.
He sprang from his saddle, caught her in his arms, and laid her on the
turf, wishing the while that it covered her grave. Just then one of
Waldron's orderlies rode up and exclaimed: "What is the matter with
the--the boy? Hullo, Charlie."

Fitz Hugh stared at the man in silence, tempted to tear him from his
horse. "The boy is ill," he answered when he recovered his self-command.
"Take charge of him yourself." He remounted, rode onward out of sight
beyond a thicket, and there waited for the brigade commander, now and
then fingering his revolver. As Charlie was being placed in an ambulance
by the orderly and a ser