ing towards the
house together.

"They are in trouble, Thora, both of them are in trouble."

"About Thora they need not to be in trouble. She will do what they
advise her to do."

"It is not thee."

"What then?"

"I will not name my fear, lest I call it to me."

Then she rose and went to the door and Thora followed her, and by this
time, Ragnor and the Bishop were at the garden gate. Very soon the
Bishop was holding their hands, and Rahal found when he released her
hand that he had left a letter in it. Yet for a moment she hardly
noticed the fact, so shocked was she at the expression of her
husband's face. He looked so much older, his eyes were two wells of
sorrow, his distress had passed beyond words, and when she asked,
"What is thy trouble, Coll?" he looked at her pitifully and pointed to
the letter. Then she took Thora's hand and they went to her room
together.

Sitting on the side of her bed, she broke the seal and looked at the
superscription. "It is from Adam Vedder," she said, as she began to
read it. No other word escaped her lips until she came to the end of
the long epistle. Then she laid it down on the bed beside her and
shivered out the words, "Boris is dying. Perhaps dead. Oh, Boris! My
son Boris! Read for thyself."

So Thora read the letter. It contained a vivid description of the
taking of a certain small battery, which was pouring death and
destruction on the little British company, who had gone as a forlorn
hope to silence its fire. They were picked volunteers and they were
led by Boris Ragnor. He had made a breach in its defences and carried
his men over the cannon to victory. At the last moment he was shot in
the throat and received a deadly wound in the side, as he tore from
the hands of the Ensign the flag of his regiment, wrote Vedder.

I saw the fight between the men. I was carrying water to the
wounded on the hillside. I, and several others, rushed to the side
of Boris. He held the flag so tightly that no hand could remove
it, and we carried it with him to the hospital. For two days he
remained there, then he was carefully removed to my house, not
very far away, and now he has not only one of Miss Nightingale's
nurses always with him but also myself. As for Sunna, she hardly
ever leaves him. He talks constantly of thee and his father and
sister. He sends all his undying love, and if indeed these wounds
mean his death, he is dying gloriously and happily, trusting