h her
smiling face. Allan held a great stalk of garden phlox, white and sweet.
It carried him back to the tollgate and to the log schoolhouse by
Thunder Run.... Twelve o'clock. Was not Christianna coming at all?

This was not Judith Cary's ward, but now she entered it. Allan, watching
the narrow path between the wounded, saw her coming from the far door.
He did not know who she was; he only looked from the flower in his hand
and had a sense of strength and sweetness, of something noble
approaching nearer. She paused to ask a question of one of the women;
answered, she came straight on. He saw that she was coming to the
cut-off corner by the stair, and instinctively he straightened a little
the covering over him. In a moment she was standing beside him, in her
cool hospital dress, with her dark hair knotted low, with a flower at
her breast. "You are Allan Gold?" she said.

"Yes."

"My name is Judith Cary. Perhaps you have heard of me. I have been to
Lauderdale and to Three Oaks."

"Yes," said Allan. "I have heard of you. I--"

There was an empty box beside the wall. Judith drew it nearer to his bed
and sat down. "You have been looking for Christianna? I came to tell you
about poor little Christianna--and--and other things. Christianna's
father has been killed."

Allan uttered an exclamation. "Isham Maydew! I never thought of his
going!... Poor child!"

"So she thought she ought not to come to-day. Had there been strong
reason, many people dependent upon her, she would have come."

"Poor Christianna--poor wild rose!... It's ghastly, this war! There is
nothing too small and harmless for its grist."

"I agree with you. Nothing too great; nothing too small. Nothing too
base, as there is nothing too noble."

"Isham Maydew! He was lean and tough and still, like Death in a picture.
Where was he killed?"

"It was at White Oak Swamp. At White Oak Swamp, the day before Malvern
Hill."

Allan looked at her. There was more in her voice than the non-coming of
Christianna, than the death of Isham Maydew. She had spoken in a clear,
low, bell-like tone that held somehow the ache of the world. He was
simple and direct, and he spoke at once out of his thought. He knew that
all the men of her house were at the front. "You have had a loss of your
own?--"

She shook her head. "I? No. I have had no loss."

"Now," thought Allan, "there's something proud in it." He looked at her
with his kindly, sea-blue eyes. In some chamber