General Marston withdrew the Union forces to the ridge again. He was satisfied that prudence required rapid progress toward his somewhat distant destination. True, he had severely checked his foes, but he knew that they had reinforcements near, while he had not. He deeply regretted Scoville's absence and possible death, but he had the map, and the men who had been out with the scout were acquainted with the selected road. Therefore, as soon as the violence of the storm abated and the moon shed a faint radiance through the murky clouds, he renewed his march as rapidly as the rain-soaked ground permitted. Fires were lighted along the ridge to deceive the enemy, and a rearguard left to keep them burning. The trembling household within the mansion slowly rallied as the sounds of battle died away. As soon as the fury of the conflict and storm decreased, Mr. Baron lighted a candle and they looked into one another's white faces. Miss Lou was the first to recover some intrepidity of spirit. "Well," she said, "we are still alive, and these torrents are evidently stopping the fighting as they would put out fire." "Oh, Madison, Madison!" Mrs. Whately moaned, "are YOU living, or are you dead? If you are dead it is little to me that I am spared." Miss Lou did not give very much thought to her cousin. In overpowering solicitude she asked herself, "Where is he whose eyes looked such strange, sweet truth into mine to-day? Are they unseeing, not because it is dark, but because the light of life is quenched?" The brunt of the storm soon passed and was followed by a drizzling rain and the promise of a gloomy night. As the howling wind ceased their clamor, new blood-curdling sounds smote the girl's ears--the cries of wounded and dying men and horses. Then the ghastly truth, scarcely thought of in the preceding excitement, sickened her heart, for she remembered that, scattered over the lawn and within the grove, were mutilated, bleeding forms. They were all the more vividly presented to her fancy because hidden by the night. But little time elapsed before the activity of the surgeons began. Mr. Baron was summoned and told that his piazzas and as many rooms as possible must be occupied, and part of the wide hall fitted up with appliances for amputations. Every suitable place in the out-buildings was also required. Mrs. Baron almost shrieked as she heard this, seeing at one mental glance the dwelling which it had been her ruling passion to maintain in immaculate order, becoming bloodstained and muddy from top to bottom. Mrs. Whately asked only for her son, and he soon appeared, with the excitement of battle still in his eyes. She rushed to his arms and sobbed on his breast. "Come, mother," he exclaimed, "we've no time for this now. Please get a sling for this left arm, which aches horribly--only a sprain, but right painful all the same."