God!--to think--to _think_ of it--of her----"

Arran turned on him a face so ghastly that the boy was silenced.
Then the older man said:

"Do you not know that the hell men make for others is what they are
destined to burn in sooner or later? Do you think you can tell me
anything of eternal punishment?" He laughed a harsh, mirthless
laugh. "Do you not think I have learned by this time that
vengeance is God's--and that He never takes it? It is man alone
who takes it, and suffers it. Humanity calls it justice. But I
have learned that what the laws of men give you is never yours to
take; that the warrant handed you by men is not for you to execute.
I--have--learned--many things in the solitary years, Berkley. . . .
But this--what I am now saying to you, here under the stars--is the
first time I have ever, even to myself, found courage to confess
Christ."

Very far away to the south a rocket rose--a slender thread of fire.
Then, to the northward, a tiny spark grew brighter, flickered,
swung in an arc to right, to left, dipped, soared, hung motionless,
dipped again to right, to left, tracing faint crimson semicircles
against the sky.

Two more rockets answered, towering, curving, fading, leaving blue
stars floating in the zenith.

And very, very far away there was a dull vibration of thunder, or
of cannon.

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 the