"Ridgely is one of the most salubrious places I know for such trouble as
yours. And Dr. Theophilus Balsam is one of the best doctors in the
State. He was my regimental surgeon during the war. He is a Northern man
who came South before the war. I think he had an unfortunate
love-affair."

"There is no place for such trouble as mine," said the younger man,
gravely. "That bullet went a little too deep." Still, he went
to Ridgely.

Under the charge of Dr. Balsam the young officer for a time revived, and
for a year or two appeared on the way to recovery. Then suddenly his old
trouble returned, and he went down as if shot. The name Huntington had
strong association for the old physician; for it was a Huntington that
Lois Brooke, the younger sister of Abigail Brooke, his old sweetheart,
had married, and Abigail Brooke's refusal to marry him had sent him
South. The Doctor discovered early in his acquaintance with the young
officer that he was Abigail Brooke's nephew. He, however, made no
reference to his former relation to his patient's people.

Division bitterer than that war in which he had fought lay between them,
the division that had embittered his life and made him an exile from his
people. But the little girl with her great, serious eyes became the old
physician's idol and tyrant, and how he worked over her father! Even in
those last hours when the end had unexpectedly appeared, and General
Huntington was making his last arrangements with the same courage which
had made him a noted officer when hardly more than a boy, the Doctor
kept his counsel almost to the end.