This was all the intelligence they could procure from him, until spring, when there came news direct that he was at Salisbury, and there for a time the curtain dropped, leaving his face shrouded in darkness, while in his Northern home tears were shed like rain, and prayers went up to heaven from the quivering lips of a mother, who was just learning to pray as she ought, and into Annie Graham’s heart there gradually crept a wish that the poor, weary prisoner might know how much and how kindly she thought of him, feeling at times half sorry that she had not given him some little hope as a solace for the weary hours of his prison life. CHAPTER XXV. GETTYSBURGH. Rose Mather had brought her husband home as soon as it was safe to move him, and with the good nursing of Mrs. Carleton and Annie, he grew strong enough to rejoin his regiment in May, and the last which Rose heard from him directly was a few words hastily written and sent off to Washington just as the Army of the Potomac was moving on to Gettysburgh. Then came the terrible battle, when the summer air was full of smoke, and dust, and flying splinters, with clouds of torn-up earth which blinded the horror-stricken men, who vainly sought for shelter behind the trees and the headstones of the graveyard, where the dead must almost have heard the fierce commotion around them as wail after wail of human anguish, mingled with the awful shrieks of dying horses, went up to the blackened heavens and then died away in silence. Where the battle was the hottest, and the carnage the most terrible, Will Mather followed, or rather led, and when the fight had ceased he lay upon his face, unconscious of the pitiless rain beating upon his head, or the two savage looking Texans bending over him, and turning him to the light. Among the list of killed, the Rockland _Chronicle_ of July 10th had the name of William Mather, while in another column, designated by long lines of black, was a eulogy upon the deceased, who was known to have fought so bravely. Then every blind of the Mather mansion was closed, and knots of crape streamed from the door-knob, and the villagers missed the roll of the carriage wheels which were wont to carry so much comfort and sunshine to the hearts of the poor soldiers; and the little airy, dancing creature, whose bright smile and rare beauty had done quite as good service as her generous gifts, lay in her darkened room, never weeping, never speaking, except to moan so piteously, “Oh, Will, my darling, my poor, poor husband.” They could not comfort her, for she did not seem to hear, or at least to understand one word they said, and the soft, dark eyes had in them a wild, scared look, which troubled the watchers at her side, and made them tremble for her safety.