writing to them.

They put a mattress under the Arkansan. Virginia did not leave him until
he had fallen asleep, and a smile of peace was come upon his sunken face.
Dismayed at the fearful sights about her, awed by the groans that rose on
every side, she was choosing her way swiftly down the room to join her
father and aunt in the carriage below.

The panic of flight had seized her. She felt that another little while in
this heated, horrible place would drive her mad. She was almost at the
door when she came suddenly upon a sight that made her pause.

An elderly lady in widow's black was kneeling beside a man groaning in
mortal agony, fanning away the flies already gathering about his face. He
wore the uniform of a Union sergeant,--dusty and splotched and torn. A
small Testament was clasped convulsively in the fingers of his right
band. The left sleeve was empty. Virginia lingered, whelmed in pity,
thrilled by a wonderful womanliness of her who knelt there. Her face the
girl had not even seen, for it was bent over the man. The sweetness of
her voice held Virginia as in a spell, and the sergeant stopped groaning
that he might listen:

"You have a wife?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"And a child?"

The answer came so painfully.