path you follow is lighted
for me. All else is darkness. Love me. I ask no terms."

"Ailsa, I can offer none."

"I know. You have said so. That is enough. Besides, if you love
me, nothing else matters. My life is not my own; it is yours. It
has always been yours--only I did not know how completely. Now I
have learned. . . . Why do you look at me so strangely? Are you
afraid to take me for yourself? Do you think I do not know what I
am saying? Do you not understand what the terror of these days
without you has done to me? The inclination which lacked only
courage lacks it no longer. I know what you have been, what you
are. I ask nothing more of life than you."

"Dear," he said, "do you understand that I can never marry you?"

"Yes," she said steadily. "I am not afraid."

In the silence the wooden shutter outside the window swung to with
a slam in the rising breeze which had become a wind blowing
fitfully under a wet gray sky. From above the roof there came a
sudden tearing sound, which at first he believed to be the wind.
It increased to a loud, confusing, swishing whistle, as though
hundreds of sabres were being whirled in circles overhead.

Berkley rose, looking upward at the ceiling as the noise grew in
volume like a torrent of water flowing over rocks.

Ailsa also had risen, laying one hand on his arm, listening
intently.

"What is it?" she breathed.

"It is the noise made by thousands of bullets streaming through the
air above us. It sounds like that in the rifle-pits. Listen!"

The strange, bewildering sound filled the room. And now, as the
wind shifted, the steady rattle of musketry became suddenly
audible. Another sound, sinister, ominous, broke on their ears,
the clang of the seminary bell.

"Is it an attack on this place?" she asked anxiously. "What can we
do? There are no troops here! I--I must go to my sick boys----"

Her heart stood still as a cannon thundered, followed by the
fearful sound of the shell as it came tearing toward them. As it
neared, the noise grew deafening; the air vibrated with a rushing
sound that rose to a shriek.

Ailsa's hands grasped his arm; her ears seemed bursting with the
abominable sound; pain darted through her temples, flashing into
agony as a heavy jar shook the house, followed by a dazzling light
and roar.

Boom! Boom! came the distant, sullen thunder, followed by the
unmistakable whir of a Parrott shell. Suddenly shrapnel shells