Long before sunset the echoing thunder in the hills had ceased; the edge of the great battle that had skirted Sandy River, with a volley or two and an obscure cavalry charge, was ended. Beyond the hills, far away on the horizon, the men of the North were tramping forward through the Confederacy. The immense exodus had begun again; the invasion was developing; and as the tremendous red spectre receded, the hem of its smoky robe brushed Sandy River and was gone, leaving a scorched regiment or two along the railroad, and a hospital at Oxley Court House overcrowded. In the sunset light the cavalry returned passing the white mansion on the hill. They brought in their dead and wounded on hay wagons; and the boy, pale as a spectre, looked on, while the creaking wagons passed by under the trees. But it was his sister whose eyes caught the glitter of a gilt and yellow sleeve lying across the hay; and she dropped her brother's hand and ran out into the road. "Is he dead?" she asked the trooper who was driving. "No, miss. Will you take him in?" "Yes," she said. "Bring him." The driver drew rein, wheeled his team, and drove into the great gateway. "Hospital's plum full, ma'am," he said. "Wait; I'll carry him up. Head's bust a leetle--that's all. A day's nussin' will bring him into camp again." The trooper staggered upstairs with his burden, leaving a trail of dark, wet spots along the stairs, even up to the girl's bed, where he placed the wounded man. The bandmaster became conscious when they laid him on the bed, but the concussion troubled his eyes so that he was not certain that she was there until she bent close over him, looking down at him in silence. "I thought of you--when _I_ was falling," he explained vaguely--"only of you." The color came into her face; but her eyes were steady. She set the flaring dip on the bureau and came back to the bed. "We thought of you, too," she said. His restless hand, fumbling the quilt, closed on hers; his eyes were shut, but his lips moved, and she bent nearer to catch his words: "We noncombatants get into heaps of trouble--don't we?" "Yes," she whispered, smiling; "but the worst is over now." "There is worse coming." "What?" "We march--to-morrow. I shall never see you again." After a silence she strove gently to release her hand; but his held it; and after a long while, as he seemed to be asleep, she sat down on the bed's edge, moving very softly lest he awaken. All the tenderness of innocence was in her gaze, as she laid her other hand over his and left it there, even after he stirred and his unclosing eyes met hers. "Celia!" called the boy, from the darkened stairway, "there's a medical officer here." "Bring him," she said. She rose, her lingering fingers still in his, looking down at him all the while; their hands parted, and she moved backward slowly, her young eyes always on his.