“No,” replied Elfie, humbly. And she passed on to Goldsborough’s bed and said: “Albert, I didn’t mean it—indeed I didn’t! Take the orange again, dear—do! It isn’t you that I am angry with. It is treason. And my feelings are so contradictory—pull so violently opposite ways—that I feel as if my very soul was being drawn asunder by wild horses! Oh, if you had been true to your country! Oh, if you had _only_ been true!” she exclaimed, dropping on her knees and hiding her face on the edge of his bed while she sobbed convulsively. She felt his hand laid softly on her head, and presently afterwards she heard him groan—a low, deep, irrepressible groan, that seemed to have been wrung from him by extreme agony. Elfie lifted her tearful face and took his hand in hers. That hand was burning with fever. “Are you wounded, Albert? Are you wounded badly? Tell me, dear.” “Yes, Elfie, badly.” “I knew that you were taken prisoner; but I had no idea that you were hurt until I saw you here. How did it happen? Tell me all about it, dear, unless it troubles you to talk. If it does, don’t speak.” “It relieves me to talk to you, Elfie. When I turned from the lost battle-field, it was to hurry to the spot where I left you to provide for your safety. But I was pursued; and when I was about half way across the plain, between the hill and the grove, a minie ball from a sharpshooter struck my leg above the knee and shattered the bone—” “Oh! my dear—” —“Almost at the same time I saw a troop of horse galloping from the opposite direction. In a moment, Elfie, I was surrounded and captured. And they took me at once to Colonel Rosenthal. But, Elfie, as I sat there in my saddle before him, my limb hung, a shattered, useless, helpless mass beside my horse’s flank. I did not speak as I handed him my sword. I was very glad not to be spoken to; for if I had been obliged to open my compressed lips to answer I should have groaned in agony. And I didn’t want my enemy to hear me do that.” “Oh, Albert, I am sorry! I am so sorry! Is it very painful now, dear? Have they dressed it well?” “They have dressed it very well, Elfie; and they are trying to save it; but it is so very painful now that I doubt if they can do so.” “Oh, Albert, there is no danger of your losing your limb!” “We shall know by to-morrow morning whether we can save it or not. But, Elfie, I am not so anxious to save my limb as I am to obtain your forgiveness for the great wrong that I did you,” he said. “Oh! Albert, dear, don’t talk of that. It is past; and don’t you see, dear, that I am friends with you?” “Thanks, Elfie—thanks! You should understand, Elfie, that farce of a marriage, with the license, and ring, and parson, and prayer-book, all regular, was yet of no sort of value in law, unless it should be ratified by your consent,” he said. “I know—I know, Albert. But do not let us talk of such exciting things. Your fever is rising, and—here comes Erminie.”