“Send it back,” he said to Evelyn, who was watching by the side of the couch that had been arranged for him in the broad, breeze-swept hall at Wyanoke. “Send it back; I do not want it.” Ever since Kilgariff’s removal to the house of the Brents, Evelyn had been his nurse and companion, tireless in her attention to his comfort when he was suffering, and cheerily entertaining at those times when he was strong enough to engage in conversation. “You know, it was he who took me out of the burning house,” she said to Dorothy, by way of explanation, not of apology; for in the innocent sincerity of her nature, she did not understand or believe that there can ever be need of an apology for the doing of any right thing. For one thing, she was accustomed to write the brief and infrequent letters that Kilgariff wished written. These were mostly in acknowledgment of letters of inquiry and sympathy that came to him from friends in the army. Usually he dictated the notes to her, and she wrote them out in a hand that was as legible as print and not unlike a rude print in appearance. At first glance her manuscript looked altogether masculine, by reason of the breadth of stroke and the size of the letters, but upon closer scrutiny one discovered in it many little peculiarities that were distinctly feminine. Kilgariff asked her one day:— “Who taught you to write, Evelyn?” “Nobody. Nobody ever taught me much of anything till I came to live at Wyanoke.” “How, then, did you learn to read and write, and especially to spell so well?” The girl appeared frightened a bit by these questions, which seemed to be master keys of inquiry into the mystery of her early life. Kilgariff, observing her hesitation, said quickly but very gently:— “There, little girl, don’t answer my ‘sick man’s’ questions. I didn’t mean to ask them. They are impertinent.” “No,” she said reflectively, “nothing that comes from you can be impertinent, I reckon,”—for she was rapidly adopting the dialect of the cultivated Virginians. “You see, you took me out of that house afire, and so you have a right—” “I claim no right whatever, Evelyn,” he said, “and you must quit thinking about that little incident up there on the Rapidan.” “Oh, but I can never quit thinking about that. You were great and good, and oh, so strong! and you did the best thing that ever anybody did for me.” “But I would have done the same for a negro.” “But you didn’t do it for a negro. You did it for me. So you see I am right about it. Am I not?” “I suppose so. Your logic is a trifle lame, perhaps, but your heart is right. Never mind that now.”