“I don’t know; but it’s certain--yes, he’s killed,” she replied. “You--cared for him, Cynthia?” “He was about here--I mean about Mirevaux--as long as I’ve been. That was only two weeks--‘a fortnight,’ as he’d say in his funny, English way--but now it seems----” “I know,” Gerry said. “He was with his battalion which was lying in reserve. He and some of the others didn’t have a lot to do evenings so they’d drop in pretty often at the cottage Mrs. Mayhew and I had where there was one of those little, portable organs with three octaves and we’d play their songs sometimes and ours--like _Good King Wenceslaus_ and _Clementine_.” “Did you play?” Gerry interrupted. “Sometimes; and sometimes he would; and we’d all sing, In the cabin, in the cañon, Excavating for a mine; Dwelt a miner, forty-niner-- All the English liked that sort best with _Wait for the Wagon_, you know.” “Yes.” It was a minute or two before she continued; she was speaking of evenings none of them older than two weeks and one of them only the night before last; but they formed part of an experience irrevocable now and of an epoch past. “They knew pretty well what was going to happen to them--that they would have to be thrown in some day without a chance. But they talked about coming to America after the war--the mining camps of Nevada and California, the Grand Cañon, Niagara Falls, and Mammoth Cave appealed to them, particularly. I asked ‘1583’ once--I knew him best,” Ruth said; and when she repeated the nickname for him it was with the wistful fondness with which only such a name may be said, “if he didn’t want to go back home to England and Suffolkshire after the war. He said, ‘I’m eager to stay a bit with the pater and the mater, naturally.’” She was imitating his voice; and Gerry saw that it made her cry; but she went on. “‘But I can’t stay there, you know.’ “I asked, why.