"No, Phil. I'd tell you if there was. Perhaps I'm foolish to be so nervous--but I don't know--that Sister of Charity struck by a bullet--and to think of Ailsa out there under fire--" She closed her eyes and sat shivering in the gray chill of the dawn, the tears silently stealing over her pale cheeks. Berkley stared out of the window at a confused and indistinct mass of waggons and tents and moving men, but the light was still too dim to distinguish uniforms; and presently Celia leaned forward and drew the curtains. Then she turned and took Berkley's hands in hers. "Phil, dear," she said softly, "I suspect how it is with you and Ailsa. Am I indiscreet to speak befo' you give me any warrant?" He said nothing. "The child certainly is in love with you. A blind woman could divine that," continued Celia wistfully. "I am glad, Phil, because I believe you are as truly devoted to her as she is to you. And when the time comes--if God spares you both----" "You are mistaken," he said quietly, "there is no future before us." She coloured in consternation. "Wh--why I certainly supposed--believed----" "Celia!" "W-what, dear?" "Don't you _know_ I cannot marry?" "Why not, Philip?" "Could I marry Ailsa Craig unless I first told her that my father and my mother were never married?" he said steadily. "Oh, Philip!" she cried, tears starting to her eyes again, "do you think that would weigh with a girl who is so truly and unselfishly in love with you?" "You don't understand," he said wearily. "I'd take _that_ chance now. But do you think me disloyal enough to confess to any woman on earth what my mother, if she were living, would sacrifice her very life to conceal?" He bent his head, supporting it in his hands, speaking as though to himself: "I believe that the brain is the vehicle, not the origin of thought. I believe a brain becomes a mind only when an immortality exterior to ourselves animates it. And this is what is called the soul. . . . Whatever it is, it is what I saw--or what that _something_, exterior to my body, recognised. "Perhaps these human eyes of mine did not see her. Something that belongs to me saw the immortal visitor; something, that is the vital part of me, saw, recognised, and was recognised." For a long while they sat there, silent; the booming guns shook the window; the clatter and uproar of the passing waggon train filled their ears. Suddenly the house rocked under the stunning crash of a huge gun. Celia sprang to her feet, caught at the curtain as another terrific blast shivered the window-panes and filled the room with acrid dust. Through the stinging clouds of powdered plaster Colonel Craig entered the room, hastily pulling on his slashed coat as he came. "There's a fort in the rear of us--don't be frightened, Celia. I think they must be firing at----"