I had had my own wounds washed and cared for.  They were numerous enough and painful—­an ugly slash in the side, a broken rib, the crease of a bullet across the temple, and a shoulder crushed by a terrific blow, together with minor bruises from head to heels—­and yet none to be considered serious.  They had carried me up the shattered stairs to her room, and I lay there bolstered up by soft pillows, and between clean sheets, my eyes, feverish and wide-awake, seeking out the many little things belonging to her scattered about, ever reminded of what had occurred, and why I was there, by my own ragged, stained uniform left lying upon a chair.  I could look far away out of the northern window from where I rested, could see the black specks of moving columns of troops beyond the orchard, the vista extending as far as the log church, including a glimpse of the white pike.  The faint odor of near-by camp-fires reached my nostrils, and the murmur of voices was wafted to me on the slight breeze.  Some lad was singing not far away, although the words could not be distinguished, and from the farther distance sounded clearly a cavalry bugle.  I could hardly realize, hardly comprehend what it all meant.  It hurt me to move, and the fever made me half delirious.  I fingered the soft, white sheets almost with awe, and the pillows seemed hot and smothering.  Every apartment in the house held its quota of wounded, and down below the busy surgeons had transformed the parlor into an operating room.  In spite of my closed door I could overhear occasionally a cry of pain.

Yet I was only conscious of wanting one presence—­Billie.  I could not understand where she had gone, why she had left me.  She had been there, over in the far corner, her face hidden in her hands, when the surgeon probed my wounds.  She had been beside me when he went out, her soft hand brushing back my hair.  I remembered looking up at her, and seeing tears in the gray-blue eyes.  Then some one had come to the door, and, after speaking, she came back to me, kissed me, said something softly, and went out, leaving me alone.  I could not recall what it was she said.  That must have been an hour, maybe two hours, ago, for it was already growing dusk.  I do not know whether I thought or dreamed, but I seemed to live over again all the events of the past few days.  Every incident came before me in vividness of coloring, causing my nerves to throb.  I was riding with Billie through the early morning, and seeing her face for the first time with the sunlight reflected in her smiling eyes; I was facing Grant, receiving orders; I was struggling with Le Gaire, his olive face vindictive and cruel; I was with Billie again, hearing her voice, tantalized by her coquetry; then I was searching for Le Gaire’s murderer, and in the fight, slashing madly at the faces fronting me.  It must have been delirium, the wild fantasy of fever, for it was all so real, leaving me staring about half crazed, every nerve throbbing.  Then I sank back dazed