He did not seem to have much business of any sort here now. He found himself a good deal under orders--gentle orders, to be sure, but none the less to be regarded seriously. And, as he remembered, this was one of the things he had looked forward to escaping just as soon as he left the army. He had chafed under them;--not openly, because he respected the necessity of them, but inwardly, because they went against the grain. As a free-born American citizen of Southern ancestry and independent means he had, until the war, come pretty near to doing just about as he liked without dictation of any sort. Once he was out of kilts no one had interfered to any extent with the management of his everyday life. Now this young woman, approaching him with a pail of lukewarm water, tucked a towel around his neck and commanded him to lean his head back. He did so when he would much have preferred not. Then she proceeded to sop a wet rag against the wound left by Bud Childers’s bullet. It was distinctly an unpleasant process. It hurt more or less, and the water trickled down his neck. Besides, he felt that this was a distasteful duty which did not come within her province, but that of a surgeon. He offered that argument, but she kept on. “I’m afraid I’m not much of a nurse, but I’m sure this ought to be done,” she said. “You’re a wonderful nurse,” he assured her. “I’m trying not to hurt.” “It hurts you more than it does me. It’s such a messy thing to bother with.” “If he had come an eighth of an inch nearer,” she trembled. “I’m surprised he didn’t. I thought he was a better shot.” “Oh, it was wicked of him!” “It was more or less human. You see, he didn’t understand.” “He’s more like a savage than a man.” “And yet it’s so easy for any of us to misunderstand,” he said. She was still sopping, rinsing frequently the carmine from the rag. It was coloring the water in the pail like red pigment. “He wanted Roxie as a beast wants his prey. But Roxie--” “Was worth fighting for,” he broke in. “Why did she go with him? She could have roused the house.” “Yes,” he answered slowly. “She could have done that--and she didn’t. Women _are_ queer.” He had thought for a moment that he could tell this woman beside him the whole story, but he found his lips sealed. After all this was not his story; it was Roxie’s. It was of too sacred a nature for him to reveal. He felt as though he had overheard something not intended for his ears; the holy revelations a woman makes only to herself. The part of a gentleman was to forget them; to treat them as though they had never been. In these last few minutes he had forgotten even the girl herself. He realized it with a start. “Where is she?” he demanded. “If Childers took her off--” “Even he couldn’t do that against her will,” said Wilmer. “Please to be quiet.” “You think that?” “You don’t know those girls.” “I--I guess you’re right,” he admitted. “It’s probable she escaped into the woods. If she didn’t--”