red not speak--became
sly, pretending he did not know her lest the spell break and she
vanish into thin air again.

What the little sister said was becoming to him only a pretty
confusion of soft sounds; at moments he was too deaf to hear her
voice at all; then he heard it and still believed it to be Ailsa
who was speaking; then, for a, few seconds, reality cleared his
clouded senses; he heard the steady thunder of the cannonade, the
steady clattering splash of his squadron; felt the hot, dry wind
scorching his stiffened cheek and scalp where the wound burned and
throbbed under a clotted bandage.

When the regiment halted to fill canteens the little sister washed
and re-bandaged his face and head.

It was a ragged slash running from the left ear across the
cheek-bone and eyebrow into the hair above the temple--a deep,
swollen, angry wound.

"What _were_ you doing when you got this?" she asked in soft
consternation, making him as comfortable as possible with the
scanty resources of her medical satchel. Later, when the bugles
sounded, she came back from somewhere down the line, suffered him
to lift her up behind him, settled herself, slipped both arms
confidently around his waist, and said:

"So you are the soldier who took the Confederate battle flag? Why
didn't you tell me? Ah--I know. The bravest never tell."

"There is nothing to tell," he replied. "They captured a guidon
from us. It evens the affair."

She said, after a moment's thought; "It speaks well for a man to
have his comrades praise him as yours praise you."

"You mean the trooper Burgess," he said wearily. "He's always
chattering."

"All who spoke to me praised you," she observed. "Your colonel
said: 'He does not understand what fear is. He is absolutely
fearless.'"

"My colonel has been misinformed, Sister. I am intelligent enough
to be afraid--philosopher enough to realise that it doesn't help
me. So nowadays I just go ahead."

"Trusting in God," she murmured.

He did not answer.

"Is it not true, soldier?"

But the fever was again transfiguring her into the shape of Ailsa
Paige, and he remained shyly silent, fearing to disturb the
vision--yet knowing vaguely that it was one.

She sighed; later, in silence, she repeated some Credos and Hail
Marys, her eyes fixed on space, the heavy cannonade dinning in her
ears. All around her rode the Lancers, tall pennoned weapons
swinging from stirrup and loop, bridles loose under the