“Judith—­Judith—­Judith!” each time more faintly still.  There were other Judiths in the world, but the voice—­he knew the voice—­somewhere he had heard it.  The moon was coming; it had crossed the other man’s feet and was creeping up his twisted body.  It would reach his face in time, and, if he could keep from fainting again, he would see.

“Water! water! water!”

Why did not some one answer?  Crittenden called and called and called; but he could little more than whisper.  The man would die and be thrown into that trench; or he might, and never know!  He raised himself on one elbow again and dragged his quivering body after it; he clinched his teeth; he could hear them crunching again; he was near him now; he would not faint; and then the blood gushed from his mouth and he felt the darkness coming again, and again he heard: 

“Judith—­Judith!”

Then there were footsteps near him and a voice—­a careless voice: 

“He’s gone.”

He felt himself caught, and turned over; a hand was put to his heart for a moment and the same voice: 

“Bring in that other man; no use fooling with this one.”

When the light came back to him again, he turned his head feebly.  The shape was still there, but the moonlight had risen to the dead man’s breast and glittered on the edge of something that was clinched in his right hand.  It was a miniature, and Crittenden stared at it—­unwinking—­stared and stared while it slowly came into the strong, white light.  It looked like the face of Judith.  It wasn’t, of course, but he dragged himself slowly, slowly closer.  It was Judith—­Judith as he had known her years ago.  He must see now; he must see now, and he dragged himself on and up until his eyes bent over the dead man’s face.  He fell back then, and painfully edged himself away, shuddering.

“Blackford!  Judith!  Blackford!”

He was face to face with the man he had longed so many years to see; he was face to face at last with him—­dead.

As he lay there, his mood changed and softened and a curious pity filled him through and through.  And presently he reached out with his left hand and closed the dead man’s eyes and drew his right arm to his side, and with his left foot he straightened the dead man’s right leg.  The face was in clear view presently—­the handsome, dare-devil face—­strangely shorn of its evil lines now by the master-sculptor of the spirit—­Death.  Peace was come to the face now; peace to the turbulent spirit; peace to the man whose heart was pure and whose blood was tainted; who had lived ever in the light of a baleful star.  He had loved, and he had been faithful to the end; and such a fate might have been his—­as justly—­God knew.

Footsteps approached again and Crittenden turned his head.

“Why, he isn’t dead!”

It was Willings, the surgeon he had known at Chickamauga, and Crittenden called him by name.