ater, mother--a
drink!' and something wet his lips and trickled down his throat, not
cool and sweet as the rippling water he longed for, and he turned away
with sickly fretfulness; but a new strength thrilled through his limbs.
He opened his eyes; a face, battle-stained, but tear-wet like a woman's,
bent over him.

'O Clement, dear old fellow, do you know me?'

He smiled faintly, with stiffening lips. 'Yes, I know. I've prayed for
it, George. I couldn't live to see her your wife. Good-by, dear boy.
Tell mother--' He wandered again. 'Kiss me, mother--now Lois, my
Marguerite. Into thy hands, O Lord--' A momentary struggle for breath,
and then Morris laid back the grand head, and knelt, looking down on the
beautiful face, over which the patient strength of perfect calm had
settled forever.

'So that was it, after all,' he said, bitterly. 'Fool not to see; and he
was worth a generation of such as I.'

He turned away, tightened his saddle girths, cast a look on the
pandemonium before him, looked back with one foot already in the
stirrup.

'I sha'n't see him again in this hell, even if I come out of it myself.'
And going back, with gentle fingers he removed the few trinkets on the
body. In an inner pocket of the blouse he found a small packet. He
opened it on the spot. A lady's handkerchief, silky fine, white as ever.
No need of the delicate tracery in the corners to tell him whose. The
perfume that haunted it still called back too vividly that evening when
he had wondered at and loved her more for the strange, perfect calm that
chilled a little his outburst of happiness. He folded it back carefully,
touched his lips as a woman might have done to the cold forehead, and
mounted, plunging up the hill to the fight that had recommenced over the
trench. Later in the day, the ball that fate moulded for Captain George
found him. He gave one low, pitiful cry as it crashed through his bridle
arm, and then a merciful darkness closed about him.

Two months after, white and thin, with one empty sleeve fastened across
his chest, he stood where another had stood waiting for the same woman.
Through the window drifted in the early spring fragrance; a handful of
early spring flowers lay on the table. A soft rustle and slow step
through the hall, and he rose as Lois came in. She glanced at the empty
sleeve with grave, wide eyes, and sat down near him. He would not have
known the face before him, it had so altered; the hair pushed back f