every hollow, to look among the bushes and the
ravines. She had heard from men of his own company that he was missing,
and she would not turn back while he was unfound. It was for this that
she had come, and he would need her.

She was on the farthest rim of the battlefield, where the lights when
she looked back were almost lost, and it seemed to be enclosed wholly by
the darkness and the vapours. No voice came from it, but in the forest
before her were new sounds--a curious tread as of many men together
stepping lightly, the clanging of metal, and now and then a neigh coming
faintly. This, she knew, were the brigades and the batteries seeking
position in the darkness for a new battle; but she was not afraid.

Lucia Catherwood was not thinking then of the Wilderness nor of the vast
tragedy that it held, but of a flight one snowy night from a hostile
capital, a flight that was not unhappy because of true companionship.
Formed amid hard circumstances, hers was not a character that yielded
quickly to sentiment, but when the barriers were broken down she gave
much.

She heard a tread in the brushwood. Some horses, saddles on and bridles
hanging--their riders lost, she well knew how--galloped near her, looked
at her a moment or two with wide eyes, and then passed on. Far to the
right she heard a faint cannon shot. If they were going to fight again,
why not wait until the next day? It could not be done in all this
darkness. A blacker night she had never seen.

She came to a tiny valley, a mere cup in the bleak, red ridges, well set
with rich green grass as if more fertile soil had gathered there, but
all torn and trampled, showing that one of the fiercest eddies of the
battle had centred in this spot. At the very edge lay two horses with
their outstretched necks crossed united in death. In the trampled grass
lay other dark figures which she could not pass without a shudder.

She paused here a moment because it seemed to be growing darker. The low
rumble of thunder from the far western horizon came again, all the more
threatening because of its faintness and distance. The lightning gleamed
a moment and by its quick flash she saw the one she was seeking.

He lay at the far edge of the little valley where the grass had grown
richest and tallest, and he was almost hidden by the long stems. It was
his face that she saw first, white and still in the lightning's glare,
but she did not believe that he was dead. Ah! that could n