as a murmur of voices outside the room, and after a few
moments the door softly opened, and a lady put her head in and looked at
him. She was a stranger and was dressed in a travelling-suit. Gordon
gazed at her without moving or uttering a sound. She came in and closed
the door gently behind her, and then walked softly over to the side of
the bed and looked down at him with kind eyes. She was not exactly
pretty, but to Gordon she appeared beautiful, and he knew that she was a
friend. Suddenly she dropped down on her knees beside him and put her
arm over him caressingly.

"I am Norman's mother," she said, "and I have come to look after you and
to take you home with me if they will let me have you." She stooped over
and kissed him.

The boy put up his pinched face and kissed her.

"I will go," he said in his weak voice.

She kissed him again, and smiled down at him with moist eyes, and talked
to him in tender tones, stroking his hair and telling him of Norman's
sorrow for the trouble, of her own unhappiness, and of her regret that
the doctors would not let him be moved. When she left, it was with a
promise that she would come back again and see him; and Gordon knew that
he had a friend in England of his own kind, and a truth somehow had
slipped into his heart which set at odds many opinions which he had
thought principles. He had never thought to feel kindly toward a Yankee.

When Gordon was able to be out again, his father wished him to go and
thank his former foe who had rescued him. But it was too hard an ordeal
for the boy to face. Even the memory of Mrs. Wentworth could not
reconcile him to this.

"You don't know how hard it is, father," he said, with that assurance
with which boyhood always draws a line between itself and the rest of
the world. "Did you ever have to ask pardon of one who had fought you?"

General Keith's face wore a singular expression. Suddenly he felt a
curious sensation in a spot in his right side, and he was standing in a
dewy glade in a piece of woodland on a Spring morning, looking at a
slim, serious young man standing very straight and still a few paces
off, with a pistol gripped in his hand, and, queerly enough, his name,
too, was Norman Wentworth. But he was not thinking of him. He was
thinking of a tall girl with calm blue eyes, whom he had walked with the
day before, and who had sent him away dazed and half maddened. Then some
one a little to one side spoke a few words and began to