And it is an awful look of recognition that greets him, too. Shot through and through as he is, tortured with thirst and suffering, praying for help and longing for the sight of some friendly face, it seems a retribution almost too cruel that, in his extreme hour, the man sent by Heaven to minister to his needs should be the one he has so foully wronged, the one of whom he lives in dread. He covers his eyes with a gesture of dismay, and turns fearfully to the wall. There is a moment of silence, broken only by the rattle of the window in its casing as it shudders to the distant boom of the guns far down the line. Then Abbot steps to the bedside and places his gauntleted hand upon the shoulder of the stricken man. "Hollins! How are you wounded? Have you seen a surgeon?" No answer for a moment, and the question is gently repeated. "Shot through the body--rifle-ball. There was a surgeon here last night, but he's gone." "Lie still then until I get one. I would bring Doctor Thorn, but he has too much to do with--too much to do just now." He comes near saying "with our own men," but checks himself in time. He cannot "kick the man that is down" with such a speech as that, and it is not long before he reappears, and brings with him a surgeon from one of the arriving regiments. Colonel Putnam, too, comes up the stairs, but merely to take a look at the situation, and place a guard over both the wounded man and his strange, shivering companion, Rix. Some of the soldiers are sent for water, and others start a fire in the little stove in the adjoining room. The doctor makes his examination, and does what he can for his sinking patient, but when he comes out he tells Abbot that Hollins has not many hours to live, "and he wants to see you," he adds. "Did you know him?" There is a strange scene in the cramped little room of the quaint old house that night. By the light of two or three commissary candles and the flickering glare from the fire one can see the features of the watchers and of the fast-dying man. Abbot sits by the bedside; Colonel Putnam is standing at the foot, and the adjutant of the--th Massachusetts has been reading aloud from his notes the statement he has taken down from the lips of the former quartermaster. One part of it needs verification from authority not now available. Mr. Hollins avers that he is not a deserter to the enemy as appearances would indicate, but a prisoner paroled by them. The statement, so far as it bears upon his official connection with the regiment, is about as follows: