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.

“A boy, ma’am—­born the week—­before I came—­away.”

“I shall write to your wife,” said the lady, so gently that Virginia could scarce hear, “and tell her that you are cared for.  Where does she live?”

He gave the address faintly—­some little town in Minnesota.  Then he added, “God bless you, lady.”

Just then the chief surgeon came and stood over them.  The lady turned her face up to him, and tears sparkled in her eyes.  Virginia felt them wet in her own.  Her worship was not given to many.  Nobility, character, efficiency,-all were written on that face.  Nobility spoke in the large features, in the generous mouth, in the calm, gray eyes.  Virginia had seen her often before, but not until now was the woman revealed to her.

“Doctor, could this man’s life be saved if I took him to my home?”

The surgeon got down beside her and took the man’s pulse.  The eyes closed.  For a while the doctor knelt there, shaking his head.  “He has fainted,” he said.

“Do you think he can be saved?” asked the lady again.  The surgeon smiled,—­such a smile as a good man gives after eighteen hours of amputating, of bandaging, of advising,—­work which requires a firm hand, a clear eye and brain, and a good heart.

“My dear Mrs. Brice,” he said, “I shall be glad to get you permission to take him, but we must first make him worth the taking.  Another hour would have been too late.”  He glanced hurriedly about the busy room, and then added, “We must have one more to help us.”

Just then some one touched Virginia’s arm.  It was her father.

“I am afraid we must go, dear,” he said, “your aunt is getting impatient.”