is almost shames me as to the
meagerness of the gift I bring."

"If you be ashamed how must others who give much less feel?"

"He was in the first dawn of manhood," the Doctor went on, without
noticing the interruption, "handsome as a heathen god, educated and
wealthy, and with high aspirations for a distinguished scientific career
fermenting in his young blood like new wine. Yet he turned his back upon
all this--upon the opening of a happy married life--to carry a private
soldier's musket in the ranks, and to die ingloriously by the shot of
a skulking bushwhacker. He would not even take a commission, because
he wanted that used to encourage some other man, who might need the
inducement."

"But why call his death inglorious? If a man braves death why is any one
time or place worse than another?"

"Because for a man of his temperament he is dying the cruelest death
possible. He had expected, if called upon to yield his life, to purchase
with it some great good for his country. But to perish uselessly as he
is doing, as if bitten by a snake, is terrible. Here we are. I will tell
you before we go in that he has a bullet wound through the body, just
grazing an artery and it is only a question of a short time, and the
slightest shock, when a fatal hemorrhage will ensue. Be very quiet and
careful."

He untied a rope stretched across the entrance to a little wing of the
building to keep unnecessary footsteps at a distance.

"How is he this morning?" he asked of a gray-haired nurse seated in
front of a door curtained with a blanket.

"Quiet and cheeful as ever," answered the nurse, rising and pulling the
blanket aside that they might enter.

The face upon which Rachel's eyes fell when she entered the room
impressed her as an unusual combination of refinement and strength.
Beyond this she noted little as to the details of the patient's
countenance, except that he had hazel eyes, and a clear complexion
asserting itself under the deep sun-burning.

When they entered he was languidly fanning himself with a fan which had
been ingeniously constructed for him by some inmate, out of a twig of
willow bent into a hoop, and covered by pasting paper over it. He gave
a faint smile of welcome to the Doctor, but his face lighted up with
pleasure when he saw Rachel.

"Good morning, Sanderson," said Dr. Denslow, in a repressed voice. "How
do you feel?"

"As usual," whispered Sanderson.

"This is Miss Rachel Bond, who is assigne