ro of the scene in the dining-room.

Hugo's eyes were closed, his breaths slow, in restless sleep. His face,
flushed with fever, was winningly boyish and frank. He who had had the
courage to speak alone against the opinion of his fellows, to voice a
belief that made every sympathetic chord in her own mind sing with
praise and understanding, the courage to say that invasion was wrong
even when made by his own people, had been labelled coward and left to
die!

The exaltation of his features when he had been the champion of her
beliefs and her impulse against the barbarism of his comrades and the
charm of their resignation now, the pitifulness of his condition--all
had an appeal as she bent over him that called for an expression having
the touch of the sublimely feminine. She took his hand in hers and
pressed it gently. He awoke and brought himself jerkily to a sitting
posture. The effort made a crash in his head that sent his senses
swimming. She thought that he was going to swoon and slipped her arm
behind him in support and, the Marta of impulse, pressed her lips to his
brow. After the first racking throb of his temples he was able to steady
himself, and as she drew away she saw his blue eyes starting in wonder
at her act.

"I--I had to do it to thank you for what you did in the dining-room!"
she stammered.

"Oh! Oh! It was very beautiful of you, but I couldn't help being
surprised, for it was rather unusual--from a stranger." He smiled, and
Hugo had a gift in smiles, as we know: smiles for laughter, smiles for
reassurance, and smiles to cure embarrassment. "It was almost as
refreshing as a drink of water," he concluded impersonally.

"You are thirsty?"

"This--this is morning, isn't it?" Hugo went on quizzically.

"Yes, yes!"

"Then it must be the next day," he pursued, still quizzically. "You see,
I said I would not kill any more--and I will not--and I was shot and got
tagged without even being shipped as freight. I was thirsty last night,
very thirsty, and some one--I think it was Jake Pilzer--some one said to
go to the fountain of hell for a drink, but I--I don't think that a very
good place to get a drink, do you?"

Weak and faint as he was, he put a touch of drollery into the question
which made her laugh, her eyes sparkling through a moist haze.

"You're real, aren't you?" he inquired in sudden perplexity. "I'm not
dreaming?"

"As real as the water I shall bring you."

Soon Marta was back, holding