“I do so wish you could go home,” she breathed; “I am so very, very sorry.”

“Well, Miss Baron,” he replied with dignity, “I’m no better than thousands of others.  I always knew this might happen any day.  You have learned why it is peculiarly hard for me—­but that’s not to be thought of now.  If I’ve got my marching orders, that’s enough for a soldier.  It was scarcely right in Borden to give you this heavy task.  I could have faced the truth from his lips.”

“He felt so dreadfully about it,” she replied.  “He said he had been giving you false hopes in trying to make you get well.”

“Oh, yes, he meant kindly.  Well, if it hasn’t been too much for you, I’m glad you told me.  Your sympathy, your face, will be a sweet memory to carry, G—­od only knows where.  Since it can’t be little Sadie’s face or my wife’s I’m glad it’s yours.  What am I saying? as if I should forget their dear faces through all eternity.”

“Ah! captain, I wish you could hear one of our soldiers, talk.  Dying with him just means going to Heaven.”

The officer shook his head.  “I’m not a Christian,” he said simply.

“Neither am I,” she replied, “but I’ve been made to feel that being one is very different from what I once thought it was.”

“Well, Miss Baron, what is it to be a Christian—­what is your idea of it?  There has always seemed to me such a lot of conflicting things to be considered—­well, well, I haven’t given the subject thought and it’s too late now.  I must give my mind to my family and—­”

Uncle Lusthah stepped before him with clasped hands and quivering lips.  “Ef marse cap’n des list’n ter de ole man a minit.  I ain’t gwine ter talk big en long.  I kyant.  I des wanter say I hab ’spearance.  Dat sump’n, marse cap’n, you kyant say not’n agin—­ rale ’spearance, sump’n I knows.”

“Well, you kind old soul, what do you know?”

“P’raps des what mars’r knows ef he ony tinks a lil.  Let us git right down ter de root ob de marter, kaze I feared dere ain’ time fer ’locutions.”

“Now you’re right at least, uncle.  I must set my house in order.  I must write to my wife.”

“Marse cap’n, you gwine on a journey.  Wa’t yo’ wife wish mo’n dat you git ready fer de journey?  She tek dat journey too, bime by soon, en you bof be at de same deah home.”

“Ah, uncle, if that could be true, the sting of death would be gone.”

“Sut’ny, marse cap’n.  Didn’t I know dat ar w’en I mek bole ter speak?  Now des tink on hit, mars’r.  Yere I is, an ole ign’rant slabe, kyant eben read de good Book.  De worl’ full ob poor folks lak me.  Does you tink ef de Lawd mean ter sabe us’t all He’d do hit in some long rounerbout way dat de wise people kyant mos’ fin’ out?  No, bress He gret big heart, He des stan’ up en say to all, ’Come ter me en I gib you res’.”

“Yes, uncle, but I haven’t gone to Him.  I don’t know how to go, and what’s more, I don’t feel it’s right to go now at the last minute as if driven by fear.”