light. Sleep
came fitfully in flights and pauses, in broken dreams and brief awakenings.
Losing himself at last it was only to return to the woods at Chericoke and
to see Betty coming to him among the dim blue bodies of the trees. He saw
the faint sunshine falling upon her head and the stir of the young leaves
above her as a light wind passed. Under her feet the grass was studded with
violets, and the bonnet swinging from her arm was filled with purple
blossoms. She came on steadily over the path of grass and violets, but when
he reached out to touch her a great shame fell over him for there was blood
upon his hand.

There was something cold in his face, and he emerged slowly from his sleep
into the consciousness of dawn and a heavy rain. The swollen clouds hung
close above the hills, and the distance was obscured by the gray sheets of
water which fell like a curtain from heaven to earth. Near by a wagon had
drawn up in the night, and he saw that a group of half-drenched privates
had already taken shelter between the wheels. Gathering up his oilcloth, he
hastily formed a tent with the aid of a deep fence corner, and, when he had
drawn his blanket across the opening, sat partly protected from the shower.
As the damp air blew into his face, he became quickly and clearly awake,
and it was with the glimmer of a smile that he looked over the wet meadow
and the sleeping regiments. Then a shudder followed, for he saw in the
lines of gray men stretched beneath the rain some likeness to that other
field beyond the hill where the dead were still lying, row on row. He saw
them stark and cold on the scorched grass beside the guns, or in the thin
ridges of trampled corn, where the gay young tassels were now storm-beaten
upon the ripped-up earth. He saw them as he had seen them the evening
before--not in the glow of battle, but with the acuteness of a brooding
sympathy--saw them frowning, smiling, and with features which death had
twisted into a ghastly grin. They were all there--each man with open eyes
and stiff hands grasping the clothes above his wound.

But to Dan, sitting in the gray dawn in the fence corner, the first horror
faded quickly into an emotion almost triumphant. The great field was
silent, reproachful, filled with accusing eyes--but was it not filled with
glory, too? He was young, and his weakened pulses quickened at the thought.
Since men must die, where was a brighter death than to fall beneath the
flutter of the