down at them
as only the Lovely Lady of the portrait had ever smiled. There was no
difficulty now in identifying her with that picture.

"Oh, please--" began Joyce, breathlessly, "won't you tell us, Mr.
Collingwood, how you come to be--_not dead!_--and why you gave another
name at the door--and--and--" He laughed.

"I'll tell you all that," he interrupted, "if you'll tell _me_ who
'Joyce Kenway' is!"

"Why, _I_ am!" said Joyce in surprise. "Didn't you guess it?"

"How could I?" he answered. "I never supposed it was a _girl_ who sent
me that note. I did not even feel sure that the name was not assumed to
hide an identity. In fact, I did not know what to think. But I'll come
to all that in its proper place. I'm sure you are all anxious to hear
the strange story I have to tell.

"In the first place, as it's easy to guess, I wasn't killed at the
battle of Shiloh at all,--but so very seriously wounded--that I came to
be so reported. As I lay on the field with scores of others, after the
battle, a poor fellow near me, who had been terribly hurt, was moaning
and tossing. My own wound did not hamper me so much at the time, so I
crawled over to him and tried to make him as comfortable as possible
till a surgeon should arrive. Presently he began to shiver so, with some
sort of a chill, that I took off my coat and wrapped it round him. The
coat had some of my personal papers in it, but I did not think of that
at the time.

"When the surgeons did arrive, we were removed to different army
hospitals, and I never saw the man again. But he probably died very soon
after, and evidently, finding my name on him, in the confusion it was
reported that _I_ was dead. Well, when I saw the notice of my own death
in the paper, my first impulse was to deny it at once. But my second
thought was to let it pass, after all. I believed that I had broken
forever with my home. In the year that had elapsed, I had never ceased
to hope that the note I left would soften my mother's feelings toward
me, and that at least she would send me word that I was forgiven. But
the word had never come, and hope was now quite dead. Perhaps it would
be kinder to her to allow her to think I was no more, having died in the
cause I thought right. The more I thought it over, the more I became
convinced that this was the wisest course. Therefore I let the report
stand. I was quite unknown where I was, and I decided, as soon as I was
able, to make my way out West, and li